Bliss: or Why Men Don't Like Babies

I’m a junkie. What I’m on is legal, free and involves no needles, but at this point it definitely controls my life.

I’m talking about oxytocin. That’s a hormone released during labor and breast-feeding, and also apparently during canoodling. Men can make it, too, but they – obviously – don’t do it as much. According to Wikipedia, the effects of oxytocin gushing around your brain include making virgin sheep like lambs and making me forget things, and also it’s just like taking ecstasy.

What it feels like is Bliss.

When my daughter was born, I entered a world of oxytocin highs that can only be described as Bliss. For the first few weeks I was on Bliss all the time – all I needed to do was touch her, look at her, smell her, and I was off on another high.

Three years later, it’s not as intense, but it’s still going on (cuddling up to a sleeping toddler gives me quite a shot of Bliss).

A crack addict once told me that he was always looking for a repeat of the first high. You smoke again and again, and it is never the way it was, but you can never stop trying.

That’s the way I am with Bliss. Hand me a squishy little baby and something in my brain starts whispering relentlessly: have another one. More Bliss!

So I’m just a slave to my hormones.

This freaks out my husband, K. Where once there was a fairly rational and intelligent person, now there’s this raving Bliss addict who doesn’t care about any of the rational reasons, pro or con, to have another child (his are mostly con: the money we don’t have, the time we don’t have, the one bedroom apartment we live it, etc.). All the Bliss-out addict wants is babies. More, more, more.

I know some women don’t get this high when their babies are born. I’m sure it’s just a brain chemistry thing, but I feel sorry for them like a proselytizer feels sorry for someone who hasn’t been saved.

It may be a drug, but if I’d never done it, I’d never have known Bliss.

Sweaty palms

So, I had a job interview today. No matter how many times I do it, I have to surreptitiously wipe my hand on my skirt before the obligatory handshake, and hope I don't sweat through my extra-strength deodorant plus dusting powder before we wrap it up. The fact that it was the hottest day of the year in these parts did nothing to help and everything to hinder the situation. I despair of ever becoming confident meeting and talking with new people. Especially people in (perceived) authority. This is me outgrowing the crippling shyness of my childhood.

Despite my jitters, I do give good interview and may, indeed, have caught this job. Another retail position for another "green" company that wants to prove itself in the eco market. At least it is a local shop with some pleasant-seeming people and lots of covetable products. (Would I get a discount? Whee! more stuff!) But... but, essentially another boring retail job. Don't get me wrong, it's been almost a year since I've had a job and I am broke beyond belief; I will jump to it if they want to hire me. My options are slim, and have been for awhile. If it hadn't been for my family and boyfriend this past year, this little mommy-and-daughter boat would have sunk.

It's not that I don't want to work, though I will freely admit to a lazy approach to career planning, which has not served me well. My bad; my fault. I'm (still) working on it. What I do want, however, is a job that is interesting, stimulating, pays a reasonable wage, and acknowledges that it is never going to be the primary priority of my life while my child is. Oh yeah, part-time. Is this a fantasy? Throw in a desire for a little healthcare benefit and it really is beyond reality.

So what are my options? Well, the sitting on my ass for a year experiment is officially a failure. All I did was exacerbate my worst habits and outgrow my clothes. Next plan: back to school. Since my girl is finally enrolled in our increasingly dodgy public school system and I do not have to pay for daycare, a part-time school/work/mom schedule is feasible. I am taking a writing class that is very occupation-focused, a change from the theoretical, liberal-arts-based education I know and love. It is another step in my ongoing search for a vocation I can love and live without sacrificing too much of the rest of me.

In the meantime, back to retail.

Alpha (Fe)Male

So I'm getting a dog soon. Well, Andy (my boyfriend) and I are, anyway. We're adopting a former racing greyhound, four years old. He's about 60 lbs., has a brown/gray/black brindle coat, and is generally very reserved and sweet. I've also noticed, in the past few weeks, his distinct preference for Andy.

He's currently staying with a foster parent until the adoption process is finished (outlining the greyhound approval process is a whole other lengthy blog post), and we'll have him in about a week. In the interim, we've been stopping by to take him for walks. On these walks, he's Andy's shadow. He trots up if Andy gets a few steps ahead, looks up at him for approval, and follows all his commands. I think he likes me just fine, but there's no doubt who he considers the alpha male.

Case in point: On our most recent walk, he decided to stop, apparently having had enough for the day. I was holding the leash, and gave a tug. No dice. I used my most authoritative "Okay. Come on," command. He looked at me with a "Lady, you're crazy!" expression.

Andy took the leash. "Come on, Bud." He said, and tugged. The dog acquiesed.

I'll have plenty of time to practice my own alpha male skills over the coming weeks, I'm sure. But in the interim, I'm left wondering: Is it my petite build? My voice, that's a higher register than Andy's? Was my tug just weaker, and not convincing enough? I'm sure the dog was around mostly men at the track, and thus Andy represents something familiar, authoritative, and reassuring.

Maybe that's the issue--an alpha male doesn't wonder, he just does what he's going to do. Maybe the dog felt that wondering in my tug, heard a flicker of doubt in my tone of voice when I said the command.

But dammit--I want instant authority, too! Sadly, in the animal kingdom (or with this dog, at least), I'm going to have to earn it.

Buggy

The seats on the 89 bus are electric-blue plastic, with rows of two gracing the right, and single-file flanking the left. I've been lucky enough to snag one of the singles this afternoon, although, on second glance, the normally packed bus isn't too crowded today. My eye wanders past the weekly banner ads announcing the latest summer-school programs, medical research study requests, and soft drink pitches, resting instead on the elderly woman who has settled in the seat in front of me.

Her clothes are modest, but clean--a straw-colored coat, only slightly frayed at its hem; sensible nurses' shoes catching a rippling pool of loose stocking fabric at each ankle. Her red-mesh tote bag, teeming with vegetables in vibrant greens and yellows, would normally hold my attention, but instead I cannot stop staring at her hair.

Less than a foot away from me, nestled in the crown of her sprayed-and-rolled strands, is a bug. A dead bug--long dead, from the looks of it. It appears fossilized, petrified--a plank of perfectly preserved amber bordered by mere wisps of legs, each a thread-like offshoot. The insect must be at least an inch long, maybe two, and rests, cradled, in the folds of her hair, just where the silver roots peek out, as if it were placed in such an ideal setting for viewing by a curator, scientist, or photographer.

I reach to the tap the woman on the shoulder, then hesitate. I've had my share of awkward moments approaching strangers in the past. I strive to emulate my friend Kathleen, she with her Kansas-friendly smile and twangy accent to match, who approaches bewildered tourists in our guidebook-popular neighborhood with a disarming, "Where ya trying to get?" When I once tried to do the same thing (without the colloquialism, of course), with a clearly lost family of five, I got a host of quizzical looks and an earful of German. I haven't attempted to converse with a stranger since.

The bug's spindly legs, splayed akimbo, seem anchored in place. I look up at the closest advertisement, a poster shouting in bright yellow letters that I could learn Swahili, in addition to more than 50 other tongues, at a local language center. Wryly, I note German among them.

The woman shifts in her seat, clears her throat. The bug doesn't budge from his delicate nest.

I reach out my hand to tap her shoulder. I hesitate. I envision a tussle to wrench the bug free from this silver-blond crown, a mixture of Germanic languages from the old country and new as we attempt to sort out the details, a cascade of peppers and zucchini rolling across the filthy bus floor. In the confusion, I picture the bug disintegrating, like pieces of ash, scattered among each strand of hair. I put my hand back in my lap.

The bus lurches down Broadway. I reach my hand to tap her shoulder again. I'll tell her, I think.

One more stop. Okay, I'm going to tell her.

She shifts in her seat. Now, tell her. From that angle, the bug isn't even visible.

Now.

She rings the bell, stands to get up. I'm frozen. I watch her descend the stairs, take a few steps onto the sidewalk.

I remain on the bus, fraught with propriety and shyness. I didn't tell her.

Hairless

So I shave. Not everything (!) but my legs and armpits. I lived for many years in a European country where, contrary to American assumptions, shaving was mandatory. That is, almost everybody did it, and if you didn’t, you were gross. I didn’t want to be gross, so I shaved.

Before that, I went to college in a pretty hippyfied town where it was cool grunge nature girl not to shave – a trend I also slavishly followed, in my purple plaid, flannel men’s shirt and too big green corduroys.

But now I’m back in America, and I still shave…but sometimes I wonder why.

Well, honestly, I still do it to conform. The only problem is, what am I conforming with? I mean, why are women supposed to be hairless? Because it references youth –- and as the parent of an actual naturally hairless pre-pre-prepubescent girl, I am kind of disturbed by my own behavior.

But not enough to stop shaving.

A Cara by any other name would still smell as sweet, right?

“don't give me your name please.”





This was the entirety of an email sent to me by my new (as of May) husband Dave. It was the end of a string of emails between my and my mom (Dad and Dave were cc’d on all the back and forth) about the weather up in Maine where we are going to visit my parent this weekend.

I was completely confused by his email (maybe more discerning readers aren’t) and called him. Turns out that somewhere in the email string he saw “Cara and Dave deBeer” and thought that I’d changed the name field to “Cara and Dave deBeer” to show as sender on my own emails. deBeer is my last name, not his (I did not take his name when we got married) and Dave was, understandably, objecting to his wife inflicting her last name on him when he was quite happy with his own – particularly when said wife had not changed her name on marriage. In fact, I hadn’t actually made any changes to my name on email and the misunderstanding was quickly cleared up – in her Blackberry contacts lists, my mom has an entry for “Cara and Dave deBeer” (her little joke) which apparently has my personal email listed as the primary email for that entry.

So no problems, right? Right, but I thought it was interesting enough to write about since he’s also mentioned that he’s a little weirded out when he gets called “Mr. deBeer” at the vet. (All four cats have my last name, since I’m generally the one who does the cat/vet wrangling – a division of labor topic all on its own, but not in this post.) And then I thought how interesting it is that his reaction is so different to my own – I’m pretty sure this year that we’ll get Christmas cards addressed to Mr and Mrs Dave’sLastName, and probably my letters from older relatives (not that I have many left) will be sent to Mrs. Cara Dave’sLastName, even though I’m still Ms. Cara deBeer – and all of that stuff is so not worth getting worked up over, even though it blithely ignores my own conscious choices and reasons not to take my husband’s name. They’re letters and Christmas cards – it’s really okay with me here to accept these well wishes in the loving spirit they are written. In different circumstances, yeah, I’d be pissed, but social niceties like this are not worth losing sleep over.

Anyway, so Dave finds the experience of being associated with his spouse’s name disconcerting because he’s so unprepared for it, while as a girl, I’ve been prepared for it all my life by a million cultural inculcations, and my job is to pick my battles. Being addressed as “HisLastName” on letters? Not worth it. Defending my decision to a (male) friend not to take his name: worth it. “But my wife changed her name!” he said, when I awkwardly explained what a pain in the ass it is to change one’s name across credit cards and bank accounts and email accounts and insurance policies and and and … and I don’t want to, basically. Valid reasons aside, I didn’t want to change my name. My friend’s attitude was pretty much like, “If my wife did it, you can do it!” Which misses the point: I didn’t change my name to Dave’s last name because I didn’t want to.

I like deBeer. It has been my name all my life. I am attached to it, quirky capitalizations and questions about association with certain famous diamond purveyors* aside. And Dave feels the same about his last name, which is why it’s strange for him at the vet and coming across it unexpectedly in someone’s contact list – those are instances where his choice not to take my name is ignored, for one reason or another. (I should specify: I’m writing about this because it occupies a lot of my headspace, but I don’t think it’s more than a mosquito on the windshield for Dave; he’ll probably have forgotten about the whole thing or wonder why I’m making such a big deal out of it by the time he gets around to reading this.)

And here’s the kicker: this is really about choice, and respect. I have another friend who has changed her email name display so it now reads “Mrs. HerFirstName HisLastName”, which is cool, although I personally think including Mrs. is an unnecessarily formal display on an email. But she wants to emphasize her own choice, which is, again, cool. Lots of my friends have gotten married and are now Mrs. HisLastName. Others are still Ms. HerLastName. Some men are now Mr. HerLastName. And as long as everyone understands and respects the choices of others, I have no problem with any of it.

Writing all this has made me think that A) this really written from, and about, hetero marriages, which is my perspective, but B) I wish I knew how gay people dealt with this and C) I really wish gay marriage was legal in more states than MA and CA, so I’d have a bit more information and a valuable perspective outside of the whole patriarchal name-goes-down-the-male-line stuff that heteros get shunted into when they marry.

Update: when I re-read that last sentence, I realized that it read as if I was lamenting the availability of gay marriage for my own sake. I think gay marriage should be legal all over because that's what's fair. And as a nice side bonus, it would provide me with more models of marriage to look at and learn from than just the standard hetero one.

* no relation. It's a coincidence I and that company both have Dutch roots from a century ago. And yes, I disapprove of that company's despicable human rights practices and price fixing and attempts to gain a monopoly on the gem market as much as you do.

Finally, a hilarious board game just for women, exclamation mark

I was walking through Borders today (on my way to all the fun Paperchase stuff – but that’s for a different blog) when I literally stopped in my tracks.

I had caught sight of this.




Even without a closer look at the box, my heart sank. Please don’t let this be a board game only for women.

• Requires female intuition and humor (not included).
• A Dame hilarious game for women of all ages (17+). 2-8 players.

The whole thing just pisses me off. First of all, dame. Dame? Who is marketing this? What’s the demographic – I am guessing the Sex and the City one judging from the photo on their website, but seriously, when’s the last time you heard someone calling themselves a dame. If they weren’t in a revival of Guys and Dolls.

First of all, a game just for women is already weird. I mean, yeah, sometimes it’s fun to hang out only with girlfriends, but what the hell is wrong with Trivial Pursuit?

Secondly, this thing is so condescending it makes me what to hurl the box to the floor and step on it.

Here’s a sample “dame dilemma” that you have to solve in some “hilarious dame” type of way.

• “I just got the worst haircut of my life, what’s a DAME to do?!”

[Notice the question mark followed by a bang. Because girls! are so excited! all the time!!!!”

The options – on cards -- are:

• Remember there are no accidents
• Get out the scissors.
• Think, this too shall pass.
• Put on a push up bra. [As they say on the internet, wtf?]
• Have a good cry.
• Declare cocktail hour! [There comes the bang again.]

I have no clue how this game is scored, nor do I care. I think it's about guessing your friend's reactions -- and I think you all can guess mine.