Sick Dancing

Lulu, one of my 6 year old dance students, looks up at me. Kind of. She looks up at me without looking at me in the eye. She’s looking at my ear, actually.

“Erin,” she swallows and the action in her throat makes her eyebrows raise, her head jut slightly forward, and her bottom lip disappear.

“Erin,” a couple deep wispy breaths, “I’m not feeling very good. I’m feeling sick.” One minute ago, I told the class that we are about to begin and I have interrupted their free play of Red Light, Green Light. As I look at Lulu, her long wavy hair is sticking to her sweaty flushed face. She’s wiping the back of the palm of her hand across her forehead and I can’t tell whether this is for effect or if she is trying to get some of that hair out of her eyes.

“Yeah, Lulu, I’m not feeling very good, either. We’ll take it easy, ok?” And then I address the class, “Hey, everybody, let’s come sit in a circle.”

I am bombarded with little bodies who make physical contact with any part of me they can reach. I have a hand on each shoulder, a child on each knee, and some arms wrapped around my neck. I look across the circle at Lila, another student, who is running straight towards me and yelling, “I have a fever! I have strept throat!” She leaps into my torso and my arms automatically reach out to catch her.

That was Tuesday.

Today is Thursday.

I am sick.

In eighth grade, I had mononucleosis. I remember those 2 weeks with great fondness. My whole world was paused: no ballet, no school, lots of sleep. To this day, when I sense the onset of illness, secretly I hope it is mono. These days, though, I am afflicted only with little people’s sicknesses: running noses, sore throat, slight fever. These symptoms do not warrant adult sick days. And I feel like my 30 year old’s body is walking around battling the world's diseases with a 6 year old’s immune system.

Cupcake Crushing Charlie

In the 1980s, there was a CRUSH soda commercial that I secretly loved. I suppose that was the point of the marketing campaign. As I recall (and my memory here may be faulty) there are two brothers who are on their way to the big brother’s soccer game. Big brother gives little brother the bottle of CRUSH and cautiously tells him, “Don’t drink it.” Of course, it is a hot day and the bottle holding the orange soda is dripping with perspiration from the ice cold refrigerator from which it was just grabbed. Big brother is working up a sweat on the field while little brother is working up a sweat on the sidelines as he flirts with the possibilities of the glass bottle. His desire and curiosity get the best of him and he surrenders to the craving by having one sip. And then another. And finally he chugs the entire drink. The soccer game ends, sweaty big brother comes over to little brother (who has just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with a big exhale of satisfaction) and asks about the whereabouts of his CRUSH. Poor big brother, we think, but we feel gratified because we just experienced little brother’s bliss.

And more importantly, young Erin experienced her first crush.

There’s a similar scene in “Once Upon A Time in America” (which I have just recently watched…twice)when twelve year old Patsy buys a frosted cupcake for a girl. It is intended to be in exchange for sex. When he arrives at the apartment in the tenement, he knocks on her door and the girl’s mother answers by telling him that the she is in the bath and he has to wait in the hallway for a few minutes. Over the course of the next two minutes, we watch his fierce internal battle as he sits on the stairs undressing his cupcake. First the string tied around its packaging is undone. Then he lifts off all edges of the parchment paper, smoothing them down so that the cupcake is standing alone in the middle of a floor of white. Every 20 seconds, he glances from the closed apartment door back to the naked cupcake. He picks the cherry off the top and places it in his mouth. After that he dips his index finger in the frosting and licks it off impetuously. Another glance at the apartment door and his face lowers to the cupcake. He picks it up and takes the biggest possible bite and without swallowing finishes it off with a second bite. He chews it and licks every digit that has touched it. As he begins to crinkle up the parchment paper, out steps the freshly bathed girl who asks what he wants. Patsy says that he’ll come back tomorrow.

Patsy had a cupcake crush. And 30 year old Erin had a crush on twelve year old Patsy.

Patsy and the CRUSH little brother are bookends to a library of innocent and unrequited crushes. Charlie McDermott was my first real live crush. He had a crew cut, wore glasses, and had three older sisters. All of these factors were important: I thought he was athletic, smart, and sympathetic. He kicked homeruns during kickball in gym class, he was in the small reading group with me, and he was nice to the girls when the rest of the boys thought we had the “cooties.” It was 1983 and during Mrs. Wilson’s second grade class year when I discovered Charlie’s flaw.

The advanced reading group was meeting across the hall with Mrs. McGee and in our book, there was a section about ballet. It was my first year in “The Nutcracker” and this was well-known to my classmates, so “we” were very excited to be reading this section about ballet. At our small table, one person would read a paragraph aloud and then the person to their left would continue. Today, Charlie began the section and he pronounced ballet: “ball-ett.” I was mortified. I was also shy, so I could not broadcast the feeling. Instantaneously, Charlie secretly tumbled down into the ranks of smelly second grade boys. Clearly, he wasn’t smart and having older sisters didn’t really make a difference. From that day forward, I continued to enjoy his kickball glory and appreciate his academic competitive edge (we often compared math scores) but my crush was officially crushed. Charlie and I went to school together from kindergarten through sixth grade and 20 years later, members of my extended family continue to ask about “Charlie McDermott.”

"Last Wash is 7:50"

This morning my phone rang. I looked at it across the apartment, on the nightstand, but recognized the smooth jazz ring tone and knew it was my parents. They (meaning my mom) would call back. I was busy digging myself out of a twelve hour laundry ordeal.

Last night, Chris and I met after work and rehearsal and took the train home together from Manhattan. The idea was that we were going to be proactive about the six foot pile of dirty clothes that has been living (or dying) in our laundry closet. The clothes have been tightly smooshed, almost airtight. When I'd try to close the door, I'd gently body check it with my shoulder and wait for the latch to click. Once I heard the click, I knew it was safe to step away. If there was no click, the door would fling open and inevitably, there would be an underwear avalanche.

During the past week, I have been waking up to Chris hustling from the shower to the laundry closet, grabbing his keychain with a nightlight en route. After a few minutes of what resembles a dog looking for his buried bone, Chris will find an outfit that is suitable to wear in public. His pass/fail test takes the form of scanning each item for any stains and investing a good inhale to the underarms of torso fitting items. Unaware that I am lying in bed watching this daily process, he seems oblivious that I am actually on laundry strike. He has been working too much and I have fallen into a homemaker role and I have decided that passive aggression is my only option. The recurrence of cleaning dishes has really pushed me over the edge, I even have to bribe myself: “clean all the utensils and then you can have a cookie.” After two cookies, the guilt hits me, I realize the poor logic, and I decide that I’m not going to get fat just because Chris isn’t helping me clean. I go on dishwashing strike, too.

In any case, we get home around 6:00pm last night. Chris announces that he needs to “just sit down for a sec” and I am familiar with this phrase. It means he is going to sleep. This is understandable, after all he worked from 9:00am Sunday to 4:00pm Monday without a break and with minimal caloric intake. I’m torn between my empathy and my frustration. And because I don’t deal well with internal conflict, I decide to take a nap, too. We wake up at 7:30 and realize that we cannot go one more day without clean laundry. We divvy up the clothes which is always a tumultuous task; I think Chris is overprotective of his clothes and Chris thinks that I am colorblind. After some minor debating about what is black and what is purple, we have four separate bags that we bring to the Laundromat around the corner.

This Laundromat is run by a Spanish-speaking couple who is cordial to us but is distrusting of small things like our detergent-measuring skills. They micro-manage us. But, at $1.25 a machine, Chris and I have decided we can deal with the input. It’s 8:15 as we feed the quarters into the last washer. On our way out, I notice that the sign next to the door says “Last Wash is at 7:50” and I ask Chris if he saw it. Nonchalantly, he says, "Yeah” and elaborates that he saw it on our way inside the Laundromat. This disturbs me because I don’t like conflict. I don’t want the owners to think that we deliberately snubbed their rules. Chris really could care less, he’s wearing dirty underwear and although the line is fine with him, he has crossed into unacceptable behavior. Clean underwear must be attained tonight. Due to time constraints (the Laundromat closes at 9:00), we decide to hang dry every article of clothing we own in our modest basement studio apartment.

Waking up this morning was tough. With T-Shirts hanging over the computer, bras dripping from the TV antenna, and 73 soggy socks arranged on a sheet in the middle of the room, my sense of order felt pummeled. Thursday began with a looming cloud of defeat.

In the middle of my fifth or sixth lap around the apartment, checking to see what was wet and what was dry, in comes the smooth jazz interlude. I glance at my phone and realize that today is “JetBlue” day (see March 17 blog entry). I imagine my mom discovering the Emergency Exit Row assignment, and I just don’t have the energy to reassure her that it is actually a coveted seat and not a punishment. Wet clothes, messy apartment, mother confused over standard airline seating…I jump in the shower.

When I check the message, this is what I hear:

“Hi Erin. I wanted to let you know that Gail, Brian, and Freddy…FREDDY! LOOK OUT! OH MY GOD! FREDDY!”

That’s all.

I think about that crash landing that I jokingly predicted (see March 17 blog entry) and fear that it has taken place.

I call my mom back and she explains that it was “just Daddy driving like a maniac, as usual. He stops 8 millimeters away from the car in front of him and he doesn’t think I am going to say anything?”

The pitch of her voice reveals the excitement she has about arriving at Logan and the vacation that lays ahead. She asks me about airport parking, wondering how long it will take my dad to walk from the car to the terminal. I tell her about 15 minutes or he may even need to take a shuttle.

“Shit.” (see March 17^th blog entry)

“Have a good trip. You’ll be in New York soon. I’ve got to go to work.”

On my walk to the studio in my slightly damp jeans, I think about the very happy people in my life. My boyfriend who has clean clothes on today and my parents on their way to party like rock stars with their fellow Floridian Baby Boomers.

Kristen & Kristin

I guess it just happens to some folks. Their lives get filled with people with the same names or names that sound the same. It’s not just with Kristen, Kristin, Kirsten and Kristen but also with Chris and Chris (former and current boyfriends) and Heather and Heather (one of my best friends and my boss). Often when I tell a story, I have to use last names even with the closest people in my life.

Until I was 5, it was just Kirsten. There was no confusion. She was my little sister. Then I started kindergarten. Kristen Haggerty stepped into my life in Mrs. Hunter’s classroom wearing bright red clogs. She giggled a lot and seemed carefree. When we played house in the nap/loft area, I liked to pretend I was washing dishes while Kristen preferred to go on the top loft and play. She wasn’t a big pretender, she was herself all the time. This intrigued me. We became friends and then quickly established ourselves as “Best Friends.” By the time we were seniors in high school, we had been enmeshed in each other’s lives for 12 years. A sense of mutual respect remains to this day, but spending eight hours a day side by side for 12 years (we studied ballet together after school and during the summer) can take its toll on any relationship.

Kristen is the oldest of four children, I am the oldest of five. Her house was equipped with sugar cereal, Atari, a pool, a camcorder, a microwave, a dishwasher, three bathrooms, a water bed and a bedroom for each child. My house was not. I was a little nervous around all those fancy things. My house was old and constantly in flux. Whenever friends wanted to come over, my reply was something like “The hallway is getting painted” or “Our bathroom is getting fixed.” Our house at 106 Elm Street had five bedrooms so we were one short. I think that Danny and Gretchen, my youngest two siblings, missed the room assignment stage of life and sort of floated between bedrooms until I left for college when they were 8 and 10 years old. Our house had one working bathroom for seven people. It never seemed like a challenge but I certainly don’t recommend it for family dynamics.

I have a photo album of all my elementary school class pictures. Kristen Haggerty is missing from the 5^th grade one because she was at Disney World. Each time I see that photo, I remember holding it for the first time and thinking 3 things: my saddle shoes are dirty, my pigtails are asymmetrical, and Kristen is in Florida. I don’t recall feeling particularly jealous, after all I’m not a big amusement park fan (just look at the photo of me and my dad on the jumbo slide at my first carnival), but I was envious of her return to school. Our classmates would crowd around to ask, “How was Epcott?”, “Did you ride the Matterhorn?”, “Was Space Mountain wicked awesome?” I didn’t even know what questions to ask, I had no idea what the rides were called. I wondered how everyone else knew. Did they go to Disney World, too? Or were they just more informed than I was?

The first time I stepped on to an airplane was when I was 16. Destination: Moscow, Russia. A different sort of amusement park. This one consisted of underage drinking, my first unrequited love, a midnight express train from Moscow to St. Petersburg and nights at the discotheque. This is a story for later.

I wasn’t interested in Disney World, but I was definitely interested in people crowding around to ask me questions. Not having been to any exotic places by the time I was ten years old, I didn’t get many questions and later decided that traveling would make those questions happen. Hence, the trip to Russia and then the fear of staying put in one place for more than two years. I have a fear of becoming unquestionable.

In my family, things took precedence over Disney World. Things my dad continues to believe in and things my mom would “do differently” (quotes because she honestly wouldn’t). [Things consciously done: private hockey, ballet, and baseball lessons when everyone else was Disney Worlding, visits to the Boston Children’s Museum, the Boston Garden and Fenway Park, and wondrous things like relishing in the home-made ice skating rink that my dad built in our backyard. Unconscious things including: staying home and watching a film on Channel 38’s “The Movie Loft” while Tommy sat behind the couch repeatedly picking his nose and wiping it on the soft brown fabric, and family outings to “Baskin Robbins” for sundaes.] My dad doesn’t regret things because he’s committed to feeling proud of his stamp: his children are smart, conscientious, well-rounded individuals with lots of potential. My mom regrets things because she’s committed to feeling that her stamp has not surfaced: her children are smart, conscientious, well-rounded individuals who have not realized their potential.

My ignorance of the details about Disney World are not surprising. I was clearly busy with other things. And I suppose if you lack the desire, you lack the knowledge (or vice versa).

Speaking of knowledge and desire.

I met Kristin Stead in kindergarten, too. She was taller than all of the students, with long blonde hair and she was smart. Kristin Stead asked me what my dad did for a living and although I cannot recall what my response was, I knew that he played on the Bruins and the Red Sox. The NHL season lasted from October to April and the baseball season lasted from April to October. It worked out nicely for his schedule (or my imagination, which appreciated that the professional sports world adjusted its schedule for my dad’s incredible talent). Since my dad was buddies with all the players, he called them by their last names just as he did with his friends from Roslindale. The only difference was that his friends from Roslindale weren’t broadcast on television at 7:35pm. Kristin Stead must have set me straight, though, because shortly after our encounter it dawned on me that my dad was on the couch and the Bruins were on TV. I think I always held that against Kristin: she got my dad fired.

JetBlue circa 1971

Last week I got a call from my mom. She wanted to book flights to Ft. Myers for her and my
dad. Actually, I should rephrase that: she wanted me to book flights to Ft. Myers for her and my dad. She calls me her personal travel agent which is ironic because her second born child, my sister Kirsten is,for all intents and purposes, a travel agent. But since the zodiac aligns or because I am a weaker personality, my patience lasts longer than some would recommend is healthy and I can withstand the 72 minute phone conversation that ensues. Granted, as I sit at my laptop in my studio apartment I stifle some laughter and roll my eyes intermittently throughout the conversation. Here is a creative play-by-play.

“O.k., so we want to go to Ft. Myers around March 22 and return around March 29, but we don’t need to go for an entire week. Actually, Freddy,” my mom consults my dad, who is sitting next her on the couch focusing on television program. Here is where my dad’s personality shines through. Typically, as opposed to stereotypically, man’s ability to multi-task is not as keen as their counterpart’s. In order for my dad to focus on the new task at hand, it takes him a long dramatic pause to re-establish a connection with the person to his side and pull away from the television set. I wait on the other end of the phone. “Freddy. Can you turn that down? Or off would be better. Judy and Bobby said that they are going to go down on which dates?” I hear my dad’s voice in the background.

“O.k., so Daddy thinks we should leave on Wednesday and return on Tuesday.”

This decision about departure and arrival takes 15 minutes which does not surprise me. There is little prep time with the Gottwalds. Spontaneous, we are not, but planners we are less.

“Oh, and Judy and Bobby said we should check Air Tran. We like JetBlue, but should we try AirTran?”

I should interject a bit into the story. When Chris and I flew home from Austin in January, we flew the Houston-JFK leg through AirTran. We had booked our tickets through Southwest, but they now have this special yet totally uncomprehendable partnership with AirTran. Southwest is a healthy airline: it has fat Texans aboard, rugged outdoorsy New Englanders who are tight-lipped and territorial, lots of families with kids (which makes the pre-boarding procedure last about 45 minutes in itself). Chris and I had an inkling when we arrived at the AirTran gate at Houston Hobby; we had to exit the main terminal (one of the nicest airports I have flown through) and get re-screened to enter the shitty terminal which is partly under construction and partly a time capsule (built way before anyone thought about airport architecture, psychological effects of colors, seating, lighting). There are about 5 gates in this terminal and we wince to realize that A)our gate is one of them and B)the only snack place is a bar-pizza hybrid joint where the tables are stool height and each one has a BUD LITE umbrella hoisted above it. Remember there is no natural light that would explain the need for an umbrella. But I digress. AirTran’s customer base looks like my fellow NYC subway riders which really isn’t a reason to be concerned as I am familiar and comfortable with people who are in my income bracket and demographic (have the sensibility and style of a student but aren’t). But I wonder what happened to all those fat Texans, territorial New Englanders, and babies. I immediately feel like we were pre-scanned to join the reject flight. Once aboard AirTran, my feelings are confirmed. Chris’s armrest is wobbly and can’t sustain the resting of his elbow (not a massive piece of anatomy), our tray tables are tilted so that our cups meander toward the edge, and (the best) a guy across the aisle asks a flight attendant for a pillow and blanket and she brusquely tells him that there “is a charge” for that kind of service. He makes eye contact with us and we all raise our eyebrows the way I imagine kids in detention do when they have asked the monitor for a pencil and have been told that detention is not for homework and they are expected to sit with their hands folded on their desks and stare at the chalkboard without blinking. We knew we were in for an inhospitable, uncomfortable, and unforgettable flight. The exceptional turbulence was a perk.

“I think we should stick with JetBlue,” I respond.

I look up their options and inform my mom that there are approximately 15 daily flights from Boston to Ft.Myers. This makes her happy. I tell her that the direct flights are $179, the one-stop flights are $129. This makes her (and my dad) unhappy.

“What do you mean? We can’t fly direct? What does a layover mean? Do I have to take-off and land more than one time? Isn’t that going to be confusing? Will we have to switch planes? How do we know where to go?” The panic is palpable. It’s like I just told her that although she will survive, the flight will indeed have a crash landing. I feel like we have stepped back into 1971.

“Mom, you switch planes. The flight attendants basically escort you to the gate across the hall. It’s easy. And it will save you $200 round-trip.”

“I don’t know. Freddy…Freddy, are you listening? She says that a direct flight is $200 more expensive.” I can hear (if you knew him, you could hear it too) my dad look up to the ceiling, stroke his chin, squint his eyes and purse his lips. He doubts the simplicity of things in life. And his skepticism, although well-known to his offspring as borne from a complicated personal history, always reveals itself in incredibly reduced one word reactions, as it does at this moment: “Really?”

I tilt my cell phone’s mouthpiece so that it rests on my jugular and I giggle out loud. I convince my mom that flying through JFK on JetBlue will be easy. It’s a hub. It’s friendly. It will be okay. She translates the assurance to my dad and there is clearance for purchase. Credit card purchases online, in my mom’s mind, are a disgraceful thing. She is plagued by an incident from years ago (long before computers came into her every day life). We were in Swampscott, visiting the very same Judy and Bobby who mentioned the possibility of AirTran, around 1988. It was the 4^th of July and the neighborhood was swarming with kids (and teenagers). She left her purse in the minivan, under the driver’s seat, and it was not until weeks later when she received her credit card statement reporting that things had been charged at Jordan Marsh. Things like jewels. That caught her eye. No one in our family bought jewels. So, after going through the motions she realized that one of the teenagers on the block on that 4^th of July must have taken the credit card right out and made purchases. This has informed her feelings towards credit cards. Although it is in no way related to online purchases, it was a traumatic event and she is highly resistant of the modern-day online purchase.

She reads the credit card to me like it is her will.

Speaking of, she also tells me where the hard copy of their will is located while the credit card transaction is going through. “Just in case,” she says.

“Good to know,” I say sarcastically as I shake my head. After a few minutes, the confirmation page appears on the computer screen and I inform her that the purchase is complete. Now it’s time to choose seats. For some reason, this seems “wicked exciting” for my parents.

“We want to be in the front of the plane.” I am impressed by her declaration. I tell her that there are some seats in the front of the plane, but they are not side by side.

“Shit.” She has a tendency to swear for dramatic value. And it always serves its purpose, as she isn’t a typically natural curser. “Freddy, there aren’t any seats together in the front of the plane.”

Another visible look up to the ceiling from Freddy.

I explain to her that there are seats together in the middle of the plane but my mom wants to be in the front of the plane; after all, there will be that crash landing and she wants to get off FIRST. I also read the information on the page and it says that there is more leg room the further back in the plane one goes. So, I relay this information. This makes them happy. I further explain that there are exits in the middle of the plane AND at the back of the plane. She’s more receptive to the idea of sitting in another section.

Freddy inquires, “Where does Erin sit?” It’s endearing to me that my dad will take my lead. On the other hand, we all know that there is an underlying pressure with those type of questions. It means that he will take your advice, but if he is disappointed, he will not forget.

I tell them that I usually sit above the wing and they decide to do the same. I put them in the Emergency Exit Row. You can imagine the 21 questions that my mom would fire off if I told her that she is in that row. So, she’ll probably discover that either on the plane or when reading this blog (whichever comes first).

I ask whether they want window and middle or aisle and middle and chaos ensues.

“What do you mean? We want only 2 seats in our row.”

“That isn’t an option, Mom.”

“Shit.”

There is some serious back and forth between them and collectively we decide that aisle and middle is best (my mom needs that eject option).

It’s 8:26 and “The Office” starts in 4 minutes. “OK. I’ll email you the confirmation, Mom. I have to go.”

She thanks me for my help and tells me that she is going to give me a call next week to help her find a cheap B&B in Key West.

I can’t wait.