Magical Thinking

From time to time, people ask Matron key life questions:

"How do you maintain the same weight for thirty years?"

"What do you do to escape?"

"How do you handle anger?"

"Why do you fear death?"

Conveniently -- and perhaps quite unusually -- the Matron has a single answer for all four of these vital queries.

Her brain.

Weight? The Matron is an avid exercise devotee. This is no secret. She rises at an early hour, hits the elliptical or the streets. Then she stretches, lifts weights. The outside actions are obvious, but it is that internal driver, the motivation to get up when it's still dark and to pound the pavement or pads until spent -- that's the key. No, it's not just a drive toward health or figure, but the sheer unadulterated pleasure of spending time alone with HER BRAIN.

You see, while the Matron exercises, she indulges in Magical Thinking. During her exercise sessions, she wins the lottery. This started out as a paltry one million; now she's up to 350 million -- a truly staggering, limitless amount of cash that would allow her to achieve fame by being the BIGGEST lottery winner and have the capacity to solve most of the world's problems.

In her mind, she dishes out that money, million by million. There's a running list of what relatives would get, how much each kid inherits, what the new houses will cost, the foundation she will start and how she personally will feed most of the starving children. You ask how she can run four to five miles daily?

Friends, who wants to walk away from 350 million dollars? Because that lush fantasy -- so real, so perfected, so coddled and carefully fostered -- ends the minute her run does.

Escape? Why, here's where the brain brings her fame and leisure. She posits herself in exotic places she has never seen (exotic to her of course and not the people who actually live there): China, India, Hawaii, Spain. In each, she sets herself up in some stunning residence that generally involves solitude and a library. In these voyages, she is a World Famous Writer. Manuscripts drip off of her fingers during her three hours of writing time each morning. The rest of the day she reads.

Sometimes, often, in the midst of such fantasy, she is pulled back to the Real World. It is genuinely painful.

Anger? Easy. She makes things (and people) explode. Car cuts off the Matronly mini-van (with its ironic peace sign)? She imagines the offending vehicle spontaneously combusting. Fenders, headlights, doors, seats: BOOM. The entire thing in flames with lots of special effects and soaring parts. People, institutions, buildings, letters, legal systems are all at risk. Boom.

Sorry, innocent bystanders.

And then the death thing. . . the Matron's brain brings her much joy, mental health (well, sort of) solitude, pleasure and entertainment. It pains her to realize that she will leave such riches all behind.

Indeed, that thought requires an immediate trip to Barcelona. Lovely how she can visit there while snuggled in bed.

In Honor of Her 1147th Post

Every hundred posts or so, the Matron rolls out an early blog entry -- written before her third person persona was fully realized. This time, she actually missed the landmark that is Post 1100 and is actually already on 1147! But every 100 or so, the diva of prose falls back on an old favorite.

This is an actual God-Buddha-Oprah-Allah-Universe conversation that took place between the deeply self-involved Matron and one of her best friends. She knows most of you have seen this, but every 100 posts or so she needs to put her feet up and gasp.

Over a Thousand Posts!

Really, this blog might be her third novel!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I had lunch with a friend yesterday.

As in a member of the Top Five Friends, the first you call on the days corporeal punishment sounds, well, reasonable or when you buy that $188 purse at ValuThrift for $7.49.

Me: "Tomorrow will be my 200th post."

Friend: "What?"

Me: "Blog post. I started with four weenie ones in September and I'm up to 200."

Friend: "I always forget about that blog."

Me (!): "You're kidding. I thought you read every day."

Friend: "Actually, I talk to you every day. Why would I read the blog?"

Me: "Because I'm writing it? It's good?"

Friend: "Actually, I like you better in real life."

Me (umbrage, taken!): "How could you! No you don't."

Friend: "Yes, I really do."

Me: "You can't possibly."

Friend: "You're wrong. I like you better, here."

Me: "But I'm funny on the blog."

Friend: "You're funny in real life, too."

Me: "I am not!."

Friend (sigh): "Yes, you are."

Me: "But I'm funny in a more thoughtful, well-done way on the blog."

Friend: "Actually, you're quick as a whip in real life. "

Me: "Now you're hurting my feelings."

Friend: "Sorry, but I prefer the real deal to the blog."

Me: "But I offer interesting political commentary on the blog. Gender stuff, too."

Friend: "Mary, you are Commentary, incarnate. In real life. You're just like that."

Me: "Oh my God. I can't believe you're saying this about my blog."

Friend: "I'm saying this about you."

Me: "But my blog is climbing in numbers! In just four months of steady postings I havehundreds of readers!

Friend: "Do they pay you?"

Me: "Of course not!"

Friend: "Are these relationships? If their kids showed up at your doorstep, do you know what to feed them? Tampax or Kotex? Which bathroom in their house is for public use and whichstrictlyoff limits?"

Me: "I know them through comments. There are kids' names involved, like Nature Girl and Boy G. Mr. T and Mr. G. Wild Child. See?"

Friend: "Hmmmm."

Me: "They put my name on their blogrolls: Minnesota Matron."

Friend: "That's not your name."

Me: "Yes, it is. And it looks good sitting up there for everyone to see, all shiny and taut: Minnesota Matron."

Friend: "You like being the center of attention."

Me: "I do not!"

Friend: "Who are we talking about?"

Me: "But I wish you preferred the blog."

Friend: "Center. Of. Attention."

Me: "Oh my God. I'm so sorry! Let's talk about you."

Friend: "Sweetie, you're always the center of attention. That's okay."

Me: "Thank God. I was getting worried, you hating my blog and all."

Friend: "Mary, the internet was created specifically for your blog. Online creativity can now take a rest. Can we order now?"

Me: "You like the blog--better? Prefer it to me in real life?"

Friend: "At this moment, yes. Very much so."

Me: "Thank you. Lemon grass soup?"

Yes, friends: the Matron is utterly self-absorbed. But in a way that's VERY interesting to others.

If You Go to the Dog Park

Now, the Matron quite likes the dog park.

She's lucky enough to live within minutes of just such a place: 30 bucolic acres, replete with ponds for paddling, fields for frolicking, and woods for otherwise pursuing.

This is an off-leash dog park. There are tidy little entry points with gates, where doggies can safely get unleashed and then -- boom! -- set free to race, chase, fetch and otherwise raise general Doggie Mayhem. Sort of what these critters were born to do.

Unless . . .

You are the person at the dog park who insists on leashing your dog. Really? The Matron wonders why these people subject their supposed beloveds to the torture of seeing their counterparts run free while they strain at the leash, a fur ball of envy and instinct.

You are the person who decides to do a U-Turn from that trail you were on and follow the Matron during her entire walk. No, she is not adverse to chatting with fellow dog-lovers. Oh no. The 'chat' is a vital part of the process.

Stranger: "Oh, what kind of dog is yours? He's adorable?"

Matron: "Not as adorable as yours! Look at how he gnaws that stick. What talent!"

That would be genuine, non-sarcastic chat at the dog park. Sort of like a play group without genetic stakes.

But . . . the stalker is different. He or she abandons independence and sticks to your side.

Stalker: "And then my neighbor's cousin lost her house to foreclosure. It wouldn't be so bad if their kids still had teeth. All those little ones rotted out because of sugar. Did I tell you about my husband's bunions?"

Sigh. The dogs can run free. The Matron? Trapped. It's hard to make a get-away: "Uh, I need to take that trail to nowhere right now?"

Yes, the dog park is a lovely place unless you are also the control freak. Now, the Matron does carry that funny bone herself, but it does not extend to dogs. One cannot make a dog 'behave.'

Stranger: "Charlie! Be a good boy! Share that ball."

Stranger 2: "Lola! Don't scare the little dog!"

Stranger 3: "I'm really sorry about my dog. He just likes to jump on things."

Hmmm . . . hog the ball, bounce at other dogs, jump up on bigger dogs? Sounds like a normal day at the dog park to the Matron.

But her all time favorite?

The person who brings ONE bright orange tennis ball to the dog park with his lone dog. Throws said tennis ball in the midst of a field of 15 dogs, all of whom immediately CHASE the ball.

There is an unspoken rule among dogs: each and every ball is MINE.

Alien with Ball: "Hey! That's Freddy's ball!! Get back!"

Not that this happened today at the dog park.

Pinch Her. But Not Yet

This morning, the Matron woke up late.

She had a peaceful breakfast, worked out on the downstairs 16th century torture machine (an elliptical her family calls Bob), and then took the dogs on a leisurely (for her) romp through the dog park.

This was all before 8 am. And it made her happy.

There were errands to run, nothing out of the ordinary: Target, post-office, gas. She grabbed a coffee along the way and listened to talk radio, which is sort of her version of music.

You can totally rock out to political pundits and book reviewers.

Then, best of all. Peaceful lunch while reading a brand new book.

After that, she donned her psychological warfare hat and took on the house. Friends, what she accomplished is nearly orgasmic. Imagine Merrick's room, clean. The entire downstairs, polished. The workshop --- let us pause here. This is not a 'workshop' although there remains a semblance of industriousness in the shelves and workbench left, and built, by the previous homeowner. No, this is the Matron's Black Hole. It is a sometimes wide open space, a depository for everything else in the Universe that has no home.

Pants too small? Put them in the workshop. Old boxes that might be good someday? Report cards, old photographs, sweatshirt somebody left here, pot that blackened, tissue paper, half-written-in notebooks, broken toys, forgotten Pokemon cards, remote control jeep missing a wheel, shoes that might be recylced to another kid, winter boots, jackets, mittens, hats?

Workshop.

After an hour of mine excavation, one can now walk four feet into the room. This too, made the Matron happy. She then swept and mopped every floor in the house. It is a big house. Her knees hurt.

She took the dogs on an unheard of SECOND outing, this time just a few blocks around the house. In a particularly bold move, she drove to a nearby convenience store --aptly named, she thought--and purchased a bag of lime chips which she ate while reading a book and watching Hawaii-Five-Oh.

The things she learned today! That show is back (remember the old one?) and the new cops are pretty hunky. Plus, she still has retained the skill of reading, eating, watching TV while occasionally wiping counters and talking on the phone.

Did she mention she also got caught up with her grading?

And if regular readers think that she has suddenly inhabited another woman's calmer, peaceful and productive life, the Matron will share that she has the previously unimaginable pleasure of being ALONE in her house for an indeterminate amount of time (not lasting longer than 48 hours and perhaps even already over for potential intruders -- excuse her while she tells John to put away his baseball bat and the dogs to stop baring their teeth).

Alone. Alone. Alone. From climbing into clean sheets to waking up in sheets with nobody else hogging them. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Not one time today did she hear this word reverberating through the hallways: "MOM!"

God-Universe-Buddha-Oprah-Allah?

Thank you.

Driving in the Dark

Several years ago, the Matron found herself doing a lot of late night driving. She was teaching a night class way out in the 'burbs. The class ended at 9:45 pm, just in time for her to make the forty minute drive to downtown Minneapolis to retrieve then 8 or 9 year old Scarlett from her stint at The Guthrie. Little did the Matron know that this was just the first of many late night runs she would be making to pick up her stage-minded daughter.

But the gift in the driving?

The Matron discovered The Story, American Public Media's late night devotion to the drama of real, non-celebrity lives. Each night during that drive to The Guthrie, the Matron was transformed. Hurtling through the darkness, in the midst of headlights and blinking city skies, a stranger shared his or her story -- heartache, surprise, tragedy, success, joy and pain. It was a strangely intimate experience, hearing these people pour out their hearts, yet also completely solitary. Just her, the van, the voice, the black outside her windows.

Yesterday, the Matron listened again as she drove home, late (no theater this time because Stagedoor Manor is just three days away and that's another blog post).

Her night class had been long and demanding, and had included the most cherubic, chunkiest, adorable five month old baby in the history of babies -- and she (the baby) wasn't even the Matron's!

You see, one of her students is a new mom, struggling with this little dumpling who needs to nurse every twenty-five seconds. The new mom's night class --the one the Matron teaches -- is three and a half hours long, three nights a week. The new father? Tearing out his hair and texting his wife throughout his own three and a half hours of torment, three nights a week.

Student: "This is so hard! She never sleeps! I'm trying to work and go to school, take care of my in-laws and I can't even go to the bathroom. My poor husband can't do anything to calm her. I don't know if I can finish this class -- I'm really sorry."

Let's just add that this student is an unusual person, someone who has endured hardships most of us cannot imagine (and is not quick to share these, but sometimes the teachers get a view) and has left her entire family half a world away so she could live in safety. This brave woman, felled by a five month old. This, the Matron could not stand.

Matron: "You can bring the baby to class if you need to."

Student (shocked): "Really?"

Matron: "Really."

She didn't. Until the next to the last day of class when her husband's psyche needed some rest and the baby needed her Mama. So last night, the Matron got to hold, cuddle and play with the beautiful K -- while her Mama worked on her papers. It was fun to realize one can lecture while holding a baby.

The entire class went "AAAH" and "OOooo" more than once.

Then, on the way home, tuning into The Story, she was treated to this: The Longest Shortest Time.

Her landing in the past was swift and bittersweet, remembering her firstborn and his demands --and how she struggled to meet them, railing against all she lost: freedom to move, an intellectual life, quiet evenings with her husband, a good book in a cafe. As a new mother, the Matron felt she had been given a life sentence of constant demand, need and feed.

Now of course, she realizes she had been given a life.

She finished the drive home, thinking of that baby and her own firstborn, far away in Chicago (summer camp -- debate institute) and a good foot taller than his mother. He's planning for college with an eagerness that doesn't escape anyone in the house.

And the sky drifted clouds and darkness as the voices of those new mothers traveled with her, women in a different place on the same journey, a journey that seems forever and an instant.

The fire fly lives we lead. Bright, rapid -- short.

Oh, That Matronly Eye

Today, the Matron was sitting in a community meeting, innocently minding her own business . . . well, not really. She was at a neighborhood meeting, after all, which means she was attending to the entire NEIGHBORHOOD'S business and somehow got a gold star for her control freak ways.

But that's another blog post.

At said meeting, a particular disturbing sight caught her delicate eye. Across the room sat a man -- sort of pudgy, late forties she guessed, dressed in a casual button down short-sleeve shirt and khaki shorts. Nothing too alarming, right? But this casual button down short-sleeve shirt was unbuttoned halfway down its owner's chest. The shirt fell open, to the breast bone. The owner of the offending attire was wearing a crisp white t-shirt underneath the unbuttoned, button-down short-sleeve shirt which was almost worse than a bare hairy chest. Worse because the gaping neckline (well, nipple line) screamed "trying to be HOT even though I'm nearly 50" and the white t-shirt underneath said "I am SO not hot and I'm nearly 50."

The mid-calf white athletic socks and green Crocs completed that sentence.

This garb unduly bothered the Matron. Instead of neighborhood concerns--whose trash was piling up, what to do for National Night Out, why a stop sign wasn't approved, etc. -- she fretted about her exposure to such a frightful outfit. Damage, being done! What if the image is permanently imprinted in her brain?!

Poor Matron!

Because then she remembered that earlier that day, she ran into a friend -- a woman in her fifties -- who spent actual money (the kind that goes into a bank and can pay the mortgage) to have tiny teeny little braids woven into the side of her otherwise long straight hair--just like her teenage daughter. That's right: matching mother/daughter braids, with feathers in them.

This sent the poor fraught Matronly psyche hurtling back through time when her friends wore smocks -- one cannot rightfully call these creations dresses -- that matched their small daughters'. Grown women in apple green dresses with full skirts and pink etching on sleeves and scooped necks: just like their four -year olds!

Worse, somehow it was acceptable to be seen like this in public.

What about the man and woman she saw recently, walking side by side down an otherwise unobtrusive city street. The man wore a t-shirt with a big thumb pointing toward his female companion: "She's the Boss."

Hers? "Dealing in Dollars and Sex."

This nearly did the Matron in. Until she remembered the toddler with the mohawk. It was pink and stood about a foot off the little boy's head. The Matron's own far more perfect children didn't even have sufficient follicles to launch such head-gear at two, let alone the gumption to pull off pink.

At least the toddler wasn't wearing Crocs. If memory served, he had a runny nose, though, probably a result of the terrible tension caused by wearing one's hair straight up in spikes before you're old enough to say the word spike.

The images were bright, painful and unrelenting. Yours truly could simply not focus on whether or not the elm tree on the corner of 3rd street and Bates had succumbed to or conquered Dutch Elm Disease because she was awash in a psychological nightmare of polyester, large lace collars on grown women and butt cracks fighting jeans for air space. Things took a turn for the worse: the entire decade of the eighties descended. Growing Pains! Full House!

Gasping, she searched the room for relief. Not a Vogue in sight. The only magazine visible was a weathered copy of Redbook.

Of course, she survived to tell the tale. Otherwise she wouldn't be safely sitting here -- in the spare, well-balanced and carefully coordinated comfort of her office -- typing this late night blog post.

Wearing skinny jeans, a tank top without words or a four-year old matching side-kick and a smug little smile -- that disappeared when her husband walked in and said "why is your shirt on inside out?"

Of course, that was what she wore to the meeting.

She of Delicate Nature and Fierce Feminism

Now, it appears that SlutWalks are all the rage.

The Matron knows that some of her readers may not be up to speed with this latest feminist trend (mass demonstrations involving scanty dress). Go ahead and google "SlutWalk." She knows that there are dishes waiting, a work memo to write, and children who need baths or sedatives. Set your troubles aside, friends, and familiarize yourselves with the SlutWalk.

Now, these demonstrations are a reclamation of sorts. Women are attempting to 'take back' or 'reclaim' the word 'slut,' just as some feminists have done for the 'c' word and African Americans for the N-word. There is no end to debate about people without a history of traditional power reclaiming language once used to oppress and demean them.

The Matron cannot address the use of the 'n' word. She is of the school that, as a white person, this is a word she will never utter. As for the 'c' word, yours truly was raised in a household where the body was to be hidden as much as possible and any bodily functions? Denied. If there was a part that couldn't been seen through a Communion Viel, well, God didn't make that body part. Satan did. So there goes her ability to reclaim the 'c' word. Thanks, Mom.

But this new venture -- not only reclaiming language -- but embodying language and acting it out, holds new philosophical questions that the 'n' and 'c' words don't. You can't change the color of your skin or your female anatomy, but you can change your clothing. But that's precisely the point for the feminists involved in the SlutWalks. This is a choice. As one protester put it, she should be able to skip the underwear while wearing a skirt or sport a thong in public and not get raped.

Naturally, the Matron would agree with her on all points, wishing she herself were young and svelte enough to pull off a public thong, even.

Now, the Matron has enough semiotics bubbling about in her to understand that a word (any word, but let's say the 'n' word or the 'c' word or the other word in question) signifies a meaning. The precise meaning is in the hands of the person receiving the word. A feminist hears 'slut' and she emancipation rings through her ears; a sexist hears the word and a vision of moral collapse comes to mind.

Keeping the comparison going (makes you want to take that sedative yourself instead of giving it to the five year old, hmmm?), she wonders what would happen if thousands of people turned out to embody -- to create street theater about -- the 'n' and 'c' words. Just how would that scene play out? What would dressing, acting and parading about as embodying those words mean? Is it possible?

It's one thing to reclaim language but quite another to purposefully create one's self in an image that already exists in our culture -- a negative, even dangerous image. Yes, the negativity and danger are the very things that our feminists sisters are challenging -- laughing at, even.

"You can't get me!"

Ah, but they can.

Rape, isn't about clothing. Rape is about power, humiliation, violence and control. Male, female, straight or gay, we are each potential victims of sexual abuse. Nuns get raped. So do small boys.

So . . . perhaps she's still swamped in her preadolescent psyche where the body wasn't to be stripped and teased and presented. But, still. Embodying the very stereotype where the culture historically places its eyes on rape only keeps those eyes directed on the slut, the whore, the vamp. The Matron thinks that feminism shouldn't hone in with laser sharp focus precisely where our eyes have gone before, but in the dark areas of our psyches, homes and streets where the real problem -- and victims -- live.

Written in a record 15 minutes but she thinks the reasoning reflects years of wisdom. Maybe.