On art, and fun, and saving your life

This Saturday was my first watercolor class ever, at the Brooklyn Museum.  I thought I knew my way around watercolor, but the more I learn, the more I learn that I don't know what I'm doing.  And really, I just want an excuse to paint for a couple of hours a week. It's a ten-session course, and I get to take it with my dad. Not to mention a lively assortment of art nerds. I say that without judgment, as I am one of them. These are my people. You shall know us by the graphite smudges on our cheeks.

One of my class paintings. Oh, but I have a lot to learn.

I cannot begin to tell you how fun this class was. It was stupid fun. I can't explain it. We didn't do anything ground-breaking. But by the end of the class I was giddy. I get such joy from this, it's embarrassing. Why is it embarrassing, you ask? That is an excellent question, and one I should bring up with my imaginary therapist.

It's been too easy, over the past few weeks, to set this new habit of mine aside. Life gets tiring and complicated and by the end of the day I'd rather watch the Daily Show than haul out my paints or find something to sketch. (The other day I sketched Jon Stewart. Multitasking!) I have to push myself, but I'm so much happier when I do it than when I don't.

As I wrote in my latest blog post over at Babble, I started painting after my psychiatrist suggested I figure out what "fun" meant, for me.

During one of my sessions with my psychiatrist, most of which were spent with my head deep in the tissue box, he asked me what I did for fun.

“Faaaahn?” I said.

“Fun,” he said.

“What is this ‘faaahrn’?” I said.

It seemed like there was a trick to his question, like my source of fun would have to be esoteric and challenging, something that hadn't occurred to me before. Like samba lessons, or advanced magic. I considered art, and disregarded it at first because it was--well, not easy, but natural. I've been drawing and painting my whole life. It seemed like cheating. Like I was getting away with something. As if fun needed to be hard. I am a slow learner, folks.

I want everyone else to have something like this. Especially those of us dealing with depression--we who tend to focus more on feeling okay, on avoiding pain, than seeking out joy. If you could do anything that's pure fun, what would you do? Bonus points if it's embarrassing. I suspect you're all secret clog dancers.

Rule breaker

A few months ago, Scott and I had a particularly spirited fight, the kind where you start out politely requesting that your partner empty out the vacuum canister after each use and you end up perched on top of a bookcase, hurling hardcovers and braying. (No? Just me?) Such arguments have become increasingly rare in our marriage, as we have mellowed with age (read: are tired and broken); besides, we would rather not traumatize our child more than is completely necessary.

But the kid was at school, some "issues" needed to be "discussed," and before we knew it we were letting things fly out of our mouths. Loudly. Angry, rude things!

The regret after such a fight is amplified when you live in an apartment building, because on top of wondering how the hell that happened and feeling like an idiot, you worry that your neighbors HEARD you being an idiot. In Scott's case, he knew they did. Because just as he yelled something particularly unfortunate at me, his beloved, our neighbors were in the hallway, leaving for work.

Now, this was just a luck of the draw--a second before that I was shouting stuff that was equally terrible--but they heard him, therefore he is a monster. Scott was mortified, because actually he is a Nice Guy who is loved by everyone. He couldn't stand it. So one day, in the hallway, he apologized to them. To the guy, specifically. I heard them talking in the hallway, all "dude, you know how it is," and "totally, bro," and then they probably high-fived or kissed or something. And I was upstairs, quietly dying.

You never do this. This is the implicit understanding in all tenant/tenant relationships: barring something worrisome or catastrophic, you don't acknowledge the private noises that are ensuing in the neighbor's apartment.  (Emphasis on private. Television? Not private. Party? Public. Super sexy moans? Privateprivateprivate.) You must also pretend that you haven't been heard. It's in the lease! (It's not in the lease. It should be in the lease.) This is how you maintain your sanity and also your personal boundaries. If you discuss each other's personal goings-on, pretty soon you're going to start confiding in each other and then you're going to have a building-friend, which is the worst kind of friend because what if you realize you're not that crazy about him after all? Then where do you go? Where, SCOTT?

But no, he had to be the good guy. And where does it end? Next he's going to start leaving memos in the hallway.

"Dear neighbors: As you undoubtedly know by now, sound travels from bathroom to bathroom. I realize now that I should not have eaten that week-old burrito. My apologies. In case you're wondering, God did not answer my cries."

"Dear friends downstairs: my wife just returned from a week-long trip, which is why you heard all that banging coming from the room above your bedroom, which happens to be our bedroom. The noise you heard was marital intercourse. I thought it best to get this out in the open, as we are adults. p.s. you'll hear more noise over the weekend, when our son is at a sleepover. Do not be alarmed."

"Yo, guys: just so you know, Alice is not clinically depressed. She's just having a rough premenstrual time and she was watching Youtube videos of soldiers coming home and reuniting with their dogs. I thought I should explain all the wailing. I told her to can it because you guys don't need to worry even more but she just threw things at me. Women! Did you notice how I didn't curse that time?"

By the way, now that he's opened up to our neighbors they're perfectly friendly to him, and they treat ME strangely. Scott insists it's in my imagination, but I can see it in their eyes. They're wondering what kind of a person would marry a lunatic who overshares with his neighbors. I'm going to tell them all about it in my next memo.

On the notion of blogging as a career

I want to do work I'm proud of, and only work I'm proud of. The work I'm proud of is not, by its nature, especially lucrative. That's fine with me; I always knew what I was getting myself into. I've always scraped together income on side jobs while I wrote what I wanted.

I started blogging eight years ago assuming a few of my friends would read it. A lot has happened since then. A lot of it has been amazing; most of that is thanks to the community I've found here. But I've also enjoyed plenty of opportunities thanks to advertising and sponsorships.

Still, I've been uncomfortable with the marriage of blogging and advertising. I'm okay with ads (obviously) as long as they stay in their place. But the advertisers want in. They want to get into your posts. It's not because they're evil. They're smart. They know where people are looking. But once they're paying you to write, you work for them. That's fine if you're a copywriter, but if your "copywriting" lands on your personal blog, that can get awfully weird. If your authenticity is being used to sell products, what does it mean, anymore?

You need to have clear boundaries to manage this terrain. You need to know what you're getting yourself into and what you're in it for. I'm not good at it, but even I've lucked out. I felt good about writing for Chronicle Books, for example. I liked their books. I had creative control over the video. It was a good fit.

I've turned down plenty of sponsorship opportunities that didn't fit. I don't want a pat on the back for those decisions; that's how it should be. But then a while ago I worked on a campaign I categorically did not feel good about. I put content on my blog that I would not have put on here if it were not for the check I was promised.

I'm not trying to be coy about which campaign it was. (You could probably guess, if you're a regular reader.) I don't want to point a finger at them;  everyone involved acted in good faith, and it's not like I couldn't have walked away. I just didn't. I apologize. I will make sure it never happens again.

Please know that I'm not saying that professional blogging is dishonest. Plenty of bloggers are far more business-savvy than I am and would not have gotten themselves into such an uncomfortable position. This is not about them, it's about me.

Professional blogging is not where my talents lie. It's not what this blog was meant for. I don't want to worry about my stats. I don't want to think about my Klout score. I don't want to be identified as a mommyblogger or a "power mom" or a mompreneur. I don't want to be an Influencer. I don't want to think about being "relevant," whatever that means. I want to write whatever I want to write, when I want to write it. Whatever dollars I collect from this place are nice, but they are and were always meant to be a few extra bucks, not an income we could live on.

This is not a call to arms, mind you. You do what you like. As I said, I know and respect plenty of people who are making a lot of money blogging. I never have, and never will.

Have you seen Bill Cunningham New York? You need to. I keep thinking about this quote:

"If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do. That's the key to the whole thing."

Poetry time!

Tonight Henry had to write a poem for his school anthology. His assignment was to write about a living thing that was important to him, and he was apologetic as he told me that he would probably write about the dog or the cat. I assured him that in no way did I expect him to write about me. No self-respecting grade-schooler is going to write an ode to his mother in the school anthology.

Then, together, we composed the poem that would never be published:

Mother
Skin, so soft
Smells like lavender
Hours of cuddletime
Whispered secrets
Mother

I offered to pay him real money if he put that into the anthology. He laughed so hard he got the hiccups and then happily wrote the real poem he was stressed out about a few minutes before and I high-fived myself for being the best parent in the entire universe. Sorry, rest of you. It's me!

A few minutes later we got into a fight, somehow, in that magical horrible way you do when you're talking and then you're yelling and you can't remember how your mouth went from making normal sounds to angry ones. The pants on his Lego Minifigure were wrong and he was frustrated and I didn't want to hear it and he slammed his door and I said, "When you're ready to apologize I'M NOT GOING TO ACCEPT IT," which is the funniest thing I've ever said in my life although I was dead serious, of course. As if he would have come out a few minutes later and I'd hiss, too late. Take your Lego minifigure and his incorrect pants and go. Just…just go.

Although if I had done that, think of the poet he'd turn into. Not that he needs help, because his poem about Charlie was pretty much the best. This is my unbiased opinion.