Birthing Beautiful Ideas

Once upon a time, I totally rocked.

I haven’t plugged in my guitar in years.  Mommy needs to get her rawk on, folks.

Oh shit, there goes the “wordless” part of my first Wordless Wednesday…

As I was checking my Twitter updates a couple days ago, I noticed that one of my friends–a unbelievably talented feminist philosoper living in NYC–tweeted about how she had recently scored tickets to an invite-only Blondie show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Of course I was immediately struck by an all-consuming (though good-natured) envy, so I tweeted back expressing said good-natured envy (as “Hanging on the Telephone” began playing in the soundtrack of my mind). 

And my friend responded with a comment about how the invitation encouraged attendees to wear “rock n roll attire.”  (I’m not exactly sure what that means, given the many permutations of “rock n roll” attire.  Although I’m guessing they didn’t mean an Elvis jumpsuit.  THOUGH THAT WOULD BE AWESOME, DEAR FRIEND-IN-NYC!!!)

In any case, I tweeted back, ”HA! I used to have some badass silver tights that I wore back when I was in a band.”

And then I basked in a few mental images of me as a pseudo-rocker chick from years past.  (It was nothing special.  But it did leave me with some good “cool cred” for when my future teenagers accuse me of being “uncool” some day.)

And then I looked down at what I was wearing.

Sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt.  And slippers.  With a big freakin’ hole in the left toe.  At 3 in the afternoon.

The veritable uniform of the frazzled stay-at-home parent.

Now, I feel the need to highlight a few caveats to that statement, and one is that I know that not all frazzled stay-at-home parents live in their sweats.  Some of you parents (like my younger sister) have impeccable senses of style and whatnot and can make what would appear to be a bulky brown paper sack on me look like couture on you.  And I hate love you for that.

What’s more, I have nothing against parents (or non-parents, for that matter) who choose sweatpants, ratty t-shirts, and slippers as their outfit of choice.  And that’s primarily because these outfits are the garment equivalent of the world’s largest chocolate, peanut-butter, whipped cream, cherry-on-top ice cream sundae. 

But to me, what was especially disheartening about my attire at the time of the aforementioned twitter-conversation was not only the fact that I was so un-rock-n-roll at the time but also the fact that I was only wearing those sweatpants because of an unfortunate potty-training incident that had left a giant urine stain on the jeans I had been wearing earlier in the day.

Which then left me thinking the following:

I’ve been peed upon, I’ve caught pretzely throw-up in my bare hand, I’ve stepped in half-chewed pasta, I’ve awoken to the pre-dawn cackles of a teething toddler, and I’ve had one or two very short people watch me poop for the past few days.

My outfit just seemed to exacerbate the indignity of those events, especially when juxtaposed with the thought of donning some “rock n roll attire” and heading out to a rock show.

And so I thought, “Where have you taken my dignity, dear children?!  Why can’t I just look down and see that I’m wearing some colorful, flattering get-up straight out of the Anthropologie catalogue?  (Not exactly a catalogue of rock n roll attire, but definitely one that’s chock full of clothes-I’d-love-to-afford-and-wear.)

But then I took a closer look at the shirt I was wearing.  It was, in fact, a shirt I wore to rock concerts all the time when I was in high school.  Including one very fantastic Sonic Youth show I saw in the mid-90’s.   Which was, incidentally, just a couple years after Kim Gordon had given birth to her and Thurston Moore’s daughter, Coco.   When she was the parent of a toddler.

And even though I was only 16 (and childless) at the time, I remember thinking as I passed her on the street before the show (in addition to thinking, “OH MY GOD, it’s KIM GORDON!!!), “Wow, she is one rockin’ mama.  I hope I can rock that much when I’m a mom some day.”

And I don’t.  I never will.  I mean, who out there rocks as hard as Kim Gordon?

photo by Anders Jensen-Urstad

But instead of basking in my former pseudo-rock-chick days or drowning in the indignity of the aforementioned parenting events, my memory of my sorta-one-degree-of-separation from Kim Gordon reminded me that I can always get my RAWK on on the inside.

Even when I’m frumpy on the outside.

(Oh yeah, and I also just won a digital download of one of Rockabye Baby!’s Lullaby Renditions from The Feminist Shopper–a GREAT giveaway and review site–so that will add an extra dollop of rock to my day.  As I sit here typing.  In my sweatpants.  And ratty sweater.  And, this time, penguin socks with holes in the toes.)

Since Tim and I are searching for a house 1.5 hours away from where we currently reside (i.e. my parents’ house), I have needed to make a few treks to our intended city-of-residence in the past couple of weeks.  Despite the fact that the drive is a bit of a hassle, I’ve used my car-time turn up my iPod full-blast and crank out some serious rock n roll (and other assorted genres).  This is because I have made these journeys kid free.

This is not to say that the kids have “bad taste” in music.  In fact, M, the only kid old enough to even have a specific taste in music, gets his rawk on to an endless stream of Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown,” Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told me Not to Come,” and Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” each time we are in the car.  Admittedly, he does have some killer taste in music for a three-year-old, but I am sick of hearing the same songs over and over and over again.  (Even Kanye becomes as annoying as the Backyardigans Soundtrack when you hear it seventeen times in one trip.)

So mama gets to listen to her tunes at her preferred volume level and in her preferred order whenever she goes house-hunting.  (Word of caution to those childless souls out there: enjoy your car-radio-autonomy while it lasts!)

And since I don’t have to worry about passing snacks to the back of the vehicle or tuning out whining and crying or explaining for the fiftieth time that seatbelts are, in fact, necessary in the car, I get the chance not only to rock out to my music but also to allow my mind to cull up some seriously random thoughts on the tunes of the moment.

Here are those most current random thoughts, in no particular order:

• Even though Thom Yorke has claimed that the subject of Radiohead’s 2003 release, Hail to the Thief, reaches beyond the scope of the Bush Administration (and even the 21st century, for that matter), I still think that the album is one of the best to capture the political and moral cesspool that was the US government from Jan. 2001-Jan. 2009.  (And yes, I do realize that the US has dabbled in moral cesspool-ery for many, many years.)  But listening to “2+2=5″ and “I Will” made me recall not only my anger over a million-and-one actions taken by our government in those years but also the sinister creepiness of the Bush years.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdnzB_xkERQ]

• Despite the song’s utter cheeseball-ness, when Roy Orbison hits those high notes on “You Got It,” I get a little choked up.

• Speaking of cheesiness, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of that George Michael and Elton John duet of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”  Ladies and gentleman: Mistah Elton John!


[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtZB4jluIO4]

• I think that the second stage of labor moves to the rhythm of Kanye’s “School Spirit.”  (When I said “random thoughts,” I wasn’t kidding.)

• Arcade Fire is buh-rill-yant.  That first track on Funeral (yes, I still think of albums as cohesive albums–and yes, I call them ‘albums’) is haunting and beautiful and thrilling and still makes me as excited as I was the first time I heard it.

• You know, I don’t think I should have let M listen to that  TV on the Radio song, “Lover’s Day.”  Those lyrics are not G-rated!

• Will you marry me, Tori Amos?