Book Launch Party

After calling and pricing out eight potential venues, I have set a date for my book launch party.  The results of my calls:  too expensive, too expensive, too expensive, unavailable, annoyingly unhelpful, wrong atmosphere, too expensive, EUREKA.

The EUREKA is Franklin ArtWorks, an old movie theater in Minneapolis that has been made over into a gallery and performance space.  It’s cheap, which was essential.  (“Since your event is in May, you don’t have to pay for heat,” the staff person told me.  Pray for a warm spring.)  It’s got a great bakery across the street and a flower shop on the corner.  It’s got space for the reading and the musical performance that will be part of the event.  And space for the signing and for the reception.  And it doesn’t require me to use a specific caterer (or, for that matter, any caterer).  It doesn’t even require me to use their chairs.  I could bring my own if I wanted to.  Which I don’t.

So here it is: a book launch party for She Looks Just Like You on Sunday, May 16 at 3:00 p.m. at Franklin ArtWorks in Minneapolis.

Adopting Your Own Child. . .

. . . is something you don’t have to do any more in Washington, DC and, soon, New Mexico.  American University Professor of Law Nancy Polikoff writes about the new laws that recognize two adults who intentionally and consensually conceive a child through donor insemination as . . . parents.  Polikoff is the author of the new book, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage (Beacon Press).

Mommy’s Little Helper

“You’re not my real mother,” Hannah says to me in her matter-of-fact way as I am taking her to school.  I have been expecting this, sooner or later.  Hannah has known for years, of course, that Jane is her birth mother and that I adopted her.  We have shown her the pictures from the adoption, her little two-month-old self held in my arms and then in the arms of the judge.  She knows her adoption story. 

I am, by legal decree, her real mother.  I carry in my wallet a piece of paper verifying this.  I think about taking it out and showing it to her. 

 “I’m not?” I say.

“Nope,” she says happily.  “Mommy is.  She’s the one who had me inside her.”

“So, what am I?” I ask. 

“You’re her helper.”

Her helper?????  She couldn’t have chosen partner?  Friend?  Even Dad?  But helper?  I feel like Alice on The Brady Bunch.

“Hmmm,” I say, as a truck passes in the next lane.  “I’m pretty sure I’m your Mama.”

There is a pause as Hannah looks out the window and picks at the High School Musical stickers she has pasted on the glass.

“Tell me a story,” she says.  She wants the next installment of Makena and Her Pet Unicorns, an endless tale that involves fairies and invisible castles and lots of pregnancies and an army of mice.  I oblige, because that is what she wants.  I suppose, that is what helpers do.  And it’s definitely what Mamas do.

Sam I Am

Years of research have concluded that children of GLBT parents are, surprise, surprise, pretty much like children of heterosexual parents.  With a couple of exceptions:  they tend to be more open to non-traditional relationships, and they tend to be more willing to accept some fluidity in gender roles.

Except my kid.  Which could be because she’s six or it could be because I’ve failed.  I’m not sure. 

Hannah brings a book home from school every night for reading practice, little 16-page paperbacks about Jordan and his soccer team, or Sally, who plants beans in the garden with her mother and watches them grow.  Or Sarah, who is afraid of the barking dog she has to pass on the way to school.

“Where’s Sarah?” Hannah asks, looking at the pages.

“Right there,” I say, pointing.  And there she is, little Sarah, dressed in a striped shirt and what can only be described as dungarees.  Little baby dyke Sarah.

“That’s not Sarah,” Hannah says.  “That’s a boy.”

“No, honey,” I say in my explain-the-world voice.  “That’s Sarah.”

“She looks like a boy.”

Well, she does, I have to admit.  But she also looks a lot like many girls used to, before 6-year-olds began dressing like 16-year-olds. 

“That’s kind of how girls used to dress,” I say.  “We just wore regular shirts and jeans.”

Hannah considers the picture, mentally weighing her capacity to tolerate gender fluidity.

“I’m calling her Sam,” she says.

Marshmallow Monday

We killed the television, sort of, about two weeks ago, when I got sick and tired of fighting with Hannah about turning it off and, this time, Jane got sick and tired of it, too.  Hannah loves television – she loves story, really, and television combines story with all those nifty moving pictures and a heavy dose of teen culture.  But she finds it almost viscerally impossible to turn it off.  I’ve tried all the techniques I know of: 

1)  advance warning (“After this show, we’re turning it off.  In five minutes, we’re turning it off.  One minute, and we’re turning it off.”);

2)  rational talks (“When I ask you to turn it off, I need you to do it without arguing.”);

3)  threats (“It goes off now or no TV tomorrow.);

4)  doing it myself, usually precipitating fury or tears.  Or both. 

But television is masterful at hooking its audience, and the Disney Channel, her favorite, is especially so.  “More to come” means a few seconds of credits from the last show, leading directly into the opening sequence of the next show.  Ads are strategically placed so as not to interrupt the transition from one program to another.  It’s brilliant, really, in an evil sort of way.

But one flying remote too many, and the television is now off.  OFF.  It was Jane who did it, finally, as it had to be, since she loves television nearly as much as Hannah, although she leans more toward PBS and Glee than Disney.   We have unplugged the cable (note:  not cancelled) which has the effect of killing all reception.  The television is still available for videos on Friday night, when we like to eat pizza and watch a movie together.  And Hannah can watch a movie on Saturday and Sunday, should she choose to do so, which, of course, she does.

Once the TV was off, it became immediately obvious that we would need to come up with some alternate activities, so that we wouldn’t simply move from arguing about television (with it on) to arguing about television (with it off). 

On the first Monday of the first televisionless week, Jane suggested that we build a fire in the fireplace after dinner. 

“And roast marshmallows!” said Hannah, who might just love roasted marshmallows more than The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. 

And in this way, Marshmallow Monday was born.  It’s followed, for those who might be wondering, by Too Much Fun Tuesday (which, last week, included a dance party in the basement to Bobby McFerrin’s Circlesongs, on a scratched CD, which caused random stuttering in the music, making it, at peak volume, almost rap-like) and Reading Wednesday. 

Thursday’s still up for grabs.

Tip du Jour

“What piece of advice would you give to grown-ups?” I ask Hannah.

I’m expecting something vaguely philosophical, something that falls into the kids-say-the-darnedest-things category. Something about kindness or world peace or helping everybody.

But this is what I get:

“If you think someone’s a robber, don’t listen to him.”

Can’t argue with that.

Golden Days

Getting it All Wrong

I lie next to Hannah on her bed as she gets ready for sleep.  It takes a while sometimes, and today was the first day of school, so it takes a while longer.  But it’s not school that she wants to talk about, of course.  It’s weddings.  So, what’s new?

“How long, exactly, have you and Mommy known each other?” she asks.

“Twenty-five years,” I say.  Well, four days short of that, but close enough.

Jane and I have been talking for some time now about our twenty-fifth anniversary. We even went away last weekend (to Minneapolis, wild things that we are) for a night out.

“What, did you get married the day you met?” Hannah asks.

“Nope,” I say.  “We were together ten years before we got married.”

(Well, “married,” but you know.)

“Oh, Mama,” she says, with exasperation in her voice, “you need a chat.”

She rolls over.

“What do you mean?” I ask, tapping her shoulder.  It doesn’t seem to faze her that we’re talking about two women being married.  What bothers her is that we just do it all so wrong.  No down-on-the-knee proposal.  No poofy wedding dresses with long, drapy trains.  No tiaras.  Ten years of waiting before having a ceremony.  It’s almost inconceivable.  At least when you’re six.

She pulls up the covers.  “You just need a chat.”

Brides to Be, or Not to Be

“When it’s OK for two women or two men to get married in Minnesota, will you and Mommy wear long gowns?”  Hannah asks me.  She has a few options selected already.  She’s sprawled on her bed flipping through the pages of the Perfect Wedding Guide, one of those free pubs that get handed out in little faux newspaper kiosks on street corners.  Hannah is a total sucker for weddings and the fancier, the better.  “Will you ride in a limo?”  She turns to a page advertising limo services and points to the black stretch.  “I like that one,” she says.

“I’m not sure we’re the limo kind of girls,” I say to her.  Actually, I am sure, and we’re not.  Although maybe, I think – quietly, in the back of my head – it could be fun.

She ignores me.

She keeps turning pages.  “I like this gown,” she says, pointing to a silky lavender dress.  “And this one,” with a tight, lacy bodice.  “But that one looks like the circus,” she says, pointing to a third.  And it does, with its multiple layers of flounce.  Some are pretty, some are bizarre, all are improbable. 

But does it matter?  At the moment, we’re not planning a wedding anyway.  We thought about it, about going to Iowa on a chartered bus, along with a group of lesbians from the Unitarian church we attend.  But we would be just as unmarried in Minnesota upon our return across the state line as we are now.  So we decided to stay home.

 I can humor Hannah, though.  “That one’s pretty,” I say, pointing to a svelte bride in a lacy dress.  Bride is pretty?  Or dress?  Both, I think,

Then she asks what is clearly her most important question:  “When you get married, can I plan the wedding?”

Oh, good Lord.  This is a girl who loves limos and lace and silk and rosettes.  But this is also a girl who thinks an ice cream wedding cake would be just dreamy.  “With chocolate straws,” she explains, “so the guests could drink the melty parts and then eat the straws.”

Well, why not?

Things the Kid Can Do

1. Put her ankle behind her ear.
2. Balance a Monopoly card (Community Chest, not Chance) on her nose.
3. Remember that, in a picture she last saw a year ago of Julie Andrews rehearsing for The Sound of Music in an Austrian barn, it is raining outside.
4. Negotiate. Everything.
5. Apologize and ask what she can do to make it better.
6. Make me crazy.
7. Forget what she ate for lunch.
8. Play Barbies (actually: Ashley, Ruby, Mailey, Alice, Ella, Rose and Rosalina) for six hours straight.
9. Inform me that some people hope that their kids won’t turn out to be gay, but they do anyway.
10. Amaze me.