Author: tlee

First Son has begun an obsession with baseball, but all is not lost. He got a card featuring a player on the Kansas City Royals, and he held it up as he sang “Royals” by Lorde to me. Heh heh.

With this latest obsession, I am regularly recruited to hit a ball with a bat, pitch, and run bases about twice a day. I have not held a bat since seventh grade. It is actually fun to hold a baseball – it truly is the perfect size for a palm (or mine).

As an adult, I have the wherewithal and experience to take that simple step of extending the bat, analyzing the best point to swing, and actually hitting the ball. This never happened back in the days of adolescent yore. I, probably like many kids or girls, felt too self-conscious to even extend the bat. To appear that I was trying would demonstrate that I cared, and if I failed without trying, that was better than failing with trying.

I was telling all this blathering to Husband how I took the time to extend my bat to judge where the ball should go and the background as an adult, an impossibility when it really counted (junior high school, when it could have made me more popular). He paused and asked me in all reverent seriousness, “would you like me to teach you?” I’m like, god no! Sure, if we could time travel, a lesson would have been fantastic when I was young, but now I’m 45. What do I care?

Nevertheless, he made me get off the TV watching couch to take his lesson and I allowed it without rolling my eyes. Sigh.

There is some hullaboo over this recent portrait of Serena Williams, whom I completely worship. The piece mentions how there was something that bothered her about her backhand, she decided to drill it 2,500 times and started the count over whenever she messed up. When she realized she was pregnant, she strategized winning each match in two sets, to minimize exerting herself. Ugh, she’s brilliant. The article is bout her and her fiance, the founder of Reddit, who said “she makes me want to be a better version of myself.” Lame. Dude, the lady makes _all of us_ want to be a better version, uh doy. What is so special about you? But then, perhaps that’s too tough a question to ever answer. Serena is exceptional and trying to come up with an equal is a losing game. Couplings happen when both parties are ready for the next step at the same time. Besides, they detail how their first date was a six hour walk in Paris and that the wonder for her was going through the city like a normal person. It’s exactly the plot of “The Prince and Me” starring Julia Stiles. (Like my version of charming royalty would be take them to the public library, CVS, and Starbucks. “See Prince Harry, this is where I buy toilet paper,” etc. etc. etc.)

The writing by Buzz Bissinger is fantastic and the hullaboo I mentioned was the fact that Serena poses nude in her pregnant body. I get that people are tired of celebrity indulgences, but this is Serena. Her body and her mind are essential elements to her game and legacy. She can do whatever she wants.

Just to make fun of myself.

Me: Hey, did you see “Get OUt”? I thought it was pretty good.
Nancy: I saw it with you.

Speaking of dancing, First Son has slowly put his subway love aside for Michael Jackson. He heard “Beat It” at a playdate, which has possessed his brain. He has descended into a scholarly review of all things MJ, including the albums and Weird Al Yanokovic parodies (and beyond. He knows all the words to “Amish Paradise.”) To love MJ is to love his dancing. The man, troubled as he was, was an incredible dancer. The way he moved…nobody else can do that, you know? I can tell First Son is always thinking about MJ. Whether he’s on his way to school, to the kitchen, to the bathroom, he will suddenly break out a move or strike a pose that mimics the hip-swiveling, ankle/wrist snapping Bob Fosse-influenced choreo of Michael Jackson apropos of nothing.

First Son is not a performer exactly. At least, he exhibits the opposite of wild enthusiasm whenever school requires the kids to go on stage. However, left to his own devices, he sinks into his imagination and all bets are off when he’s in his own music video world. He is not shy about taking up as much space as he likes, belting out “Human Nature,” “Man in the Mirror,” “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Wanna Be Startin’ Something,” “Remember the Time,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough,” “Thriller,” and “Off the Wall” with accompanying slithering moves. For Halloween, he dressed in the Thriller video costume. For his birthday, I brought in cupcakes decorated with mini–Michael Jackson Thriller album cover to class. You get the picture.

My high school BFF visited with her daughter, who was quickly recruited to join the MJ team. The four kids rehearsed and made us wait in the bathroom. When we came out, they played the “Beat It” video on the computer, with First Son, Wonder Twin Girl, and BFF daughter taking turns as MJ, while Boy Wonder Twin played the main villain by going shirtless under a winter parka and wearing a headband.

I mentioned how when BFF was turning ten, she hosted a slumber birthday party where we played “Beat It” over and over again. I still remember her standing on the couch and striking out her arms to beat of each bell in the beginning of the song. (Doesn’t sound so cool when I say “bell,” does it. But what the heck is that instrument then?) She has no memory of that night, so couldn’t appreciate the full-circle-ness of the moment. I had just moved to our town that year, so for me, it was probably more striking…or maybe her memory is just a piece of sh*t.

HA HA

First Son made me a card that featured a wide-triangle shaped pocket, stuffed with cute certificates for a free hug, a morning where he’d let me sleep in (yeah right), etc. We both made the observation that the pocket looked like underwear. We keep it classy.

A.B.D. stands for “Always Be Dancing,” a chorus in this random play Husband and I once saw at Ars Nova that featured a lot of…dancing and actors with terry cloth sweat pants they could rip off to reveal terry cloth shorts. Please, totally fun.

In any case, A.B.D. happens at home now with the little kids, thank god. Nothing cheers me up more than seeing Wonder Twin Girl sliding on the floor, eyes closed, playing the air guitar. Wonder Twin Boy also always performs interesting floor work. Their requests last night were “Call Me Maybe,” “I Don’t Care, I Love It,” and that horrific Justin Timberlake song about sunshine in his pocket.

First Son: “Mom, remember when you gave me M&Ms for potty training? I used to really like getting the blue ones because they reminded me of the E train.”

He smiles at the memory. First Son is now old enough to experience…nostalgia? He was all of two during this stage he refers to, and fully ensconced in his multi-year study of NYC subway.

One of the greatest pleasures of getting older is being absolutely comfortable saying no and expressing anger. Recently, I was with Los Kids visiting my parents. On our elevator, was an older Asian man in his 60s and younger one in his 20s, both dressed in suits. They were Korean. I noticed them immediately, since they were buzzed in at the same time as me, and there are no other Asians in my parents building. We made chit chat in the elevator, and then I noticed they were going to the same floor.

Older man: Do you speak Korean?
Me: (apologetic) No, sorry. Oh, are you visiting my parents?
Older man: Yes.
Me: [still warm] Are you friends of theirs?
Older man: We are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Needle off the record. I cannot believe this.

Me: You need to turn around right now and leave this building immediately. My father is not well and you will only upset him.
Older man: Oh okay.

They left. I said everything very calmly, my heart rate not that much faster. They were trading on our common ethnic heritage to gain audience and access to our building. And it just so happens, my father despises organized religion. Had they not left, I would have threatened to call the police.

God, and that is the beautiful thing about aging. As you grow more comfortable in your skin, you feel more powerful and you are so all out of f*cks. Like if you call the Tina Lee “f”s store, like sorry, they’re all out.

Someone needs to invent something in between a beef burger (calorie felony) and the veggie burger (tastes like paste). Oh help me, world!

For many years, I have been praying (you know, as an atheist) that I would come back in the next life as a golden retriever. That’s all I want. This year, I found that golden retrievers tend to gain weight and be overweight. (Ugh, no thank you. I have that covered in spades.) Plus my co-worker’s golden retriever died of cancer.

Seriously?