Reflexive in Point Lobos

[mallorys_camera]

Y'all should give some serious thought to voting for Max when he makes his first presidential bid circa 2022.

When he'd asked, "What should I get for Robin for Christmas?" I'd replied, "Take Robin out, buy him some clothes and give him the benefit of your fashion expertise." (Though thirteen, Robin still dresses like a colorblind four year old.)

So yesterday Max spent a lot of time lobbying for Ben to trade the Macy's gift certificate I'd given Ben for the Borders gift certificate I'd given Max. Very smart move! If it had worked – it didn't – I would have ended up subsidizing three Christmas gifts instead of two!

When Max is president, he will balance the budget!

I managed to persuade both sons into accompanying me on the Point Lobos tromp. It was an incredibly lovely day and the trails were filled with old people whose New Years resolution was to exercise more. Not me, of course – I mean, I'm old but I don't make New Years resolutions.

"Why do you always have to take that everywhere?" asked Max grimacing at my camera as we got out of the van.

I shrugged. "I like to take pictures," I said.

"But why can't you just be somewhere without taking pictures?"

"Why can't you just let me do something I like doing that's no skin off your ass without criticizing me? I mean, I realize I'm your mother and you're at that age where I'm a constant embarrassment –"

"You embarrass me too!" piped up Robin, not wanting to be left out.

"Fine. I embarrass both of you. But honestly, it's as much of a reflex action as me reaching for my camera."

It's kind of a hideous sensation being scrutinized by Max's finely honed critical sensibilities. He sees every weakness! And he comments on them, always in a way that brokes no counter argument – "You don't have to be so defensive. I'm not making a moral judgment."

Honestly, I wish he'd give up this science shit and go to law school. He'd make a fortune as the future iteration of Ken Lay's defense attorney.

Of course, the real reason I brought my camera was so that I could sneak some candid shots of Max and Robin. They're not camera shy exactly. But they won't let me get near them with a camera. Is this a guy thing?

I got a few anyway:



The rest of the day was kind of a blur of errands and organization. Really, I should make a New Years resolution, and my New Years resolution should be to do one hour of organizing every day so I never get caught up in this hideous backlog of unfilled paperwork and unrecorded numbers, the sheer volume of which is so daunting that I am tempted to throw it all away, pretend I was the victim of a devastating fire, begin anew. I'm very good at beginning anew! Not so good at carrying through.

In the middle of the night, I bolted awake again. I'd had a really sad dream about Mother Teresa, of all people. She'd been talking to me about T.E. Lawrence. "We weren't that different," she told the dreaming me, and the waking me tried to parse that statement. Did she mean they were both megalomaniacs?

I remember there was a small theological to-do last year when Mother Teresa's letters were published and it turned out she hadn't felt the living presence of God in her life for some time. She had sunk into a kind of despair. As Ben, the former Catholic, explains it this is actually a very holy state as it reenacts Christ's own despair on the cross. Father, why hath thou forsaken me?

Were all her good works just for the attention?

Couldn't go back to sleep. Made coffee, crept into my office. Alas, no helpful elves had come to organize my files during the night. So it's back to searching for that piece of paper with my EIN number again. Needle. Haystack. Check.

Comments

[cat-herder.livejournal.com]

I think Mother Theresa was kind of stuck with her profession when she realized there was no god. Kind of like a lot of us. We hit middle age and realize that we're doing something so we may as well keep doing it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Differernt rules govern vocation and advocation, I should think.

Also, at least according to the bits and snippits I've read of those letters, she really wanted to leave India -- but the higher ups wouldn't let her, they knew her PR value. That's the similarity with Lawrence.

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

That's a great picture! I discourage my mother from taking pictures of me, too. I find her scrutiny unnerving.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

i discourage my mother from taking pictures of me because she doesn't have high standards (because she's my mother i suppose) and always frames the worst of them.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Hard for me to imagine there being a "worst" picture of you -- you're so remarkably photogenic.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

ahh, see, this is the illusion created by photographs of my chosing...

;)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Really? But she loves you! I'm always on the side of mothers against errant offspring! :-)

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

This year, at Christmas, I told her, "Just Photoshop me in from last year's pictures." She didn't think it was as funny as I did...

Seriously, I would like to come help you at the Little Store. I'll work for cheap, too. The experience could be helpful in Project Career Change 2008. What do you say?

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

we've all been giving my mother a hard time, too - your entry doesnt made me feel guilty about it though because my mother has become spoiled and lazy which is something you are not - and she complains about problems caused by her laziness... some kind of vicious circle. so i think we're kind of trying to get her to snap out if it. but it's very frustrating.

could you enlist robin to help you file things? my father pays my little sister an hourly fee to do it/my sister gives him vouchers for christmas.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Sadly Robin has no work ethic whatsoever. He is the Crown Prince of Entitlement. This distresses me and makes me think I've failed as his parent -- work ethics are something that are very difficult to come by in later life.

I understand why children need to give their parents a hard time -- it's part of the differentiation process. Totally natural developmental phase. Takes the patience of Job to be on the receiving end of it though, and patience has never been one of my strong suits.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

well at least in the american social structure - aren't there others where one is expected to behave with complete awe and respect until the parent finally dies? ah, but then you have to endure pre-feminism career opportunities, which would make you quite impatient and probably negate the positive effects of his obsequiousness! i suppose it in the end it is all about compromise...

sorry i'm a bit rambly this morning... i have a meeting with a book agent and i'm feeling a bit nervous about it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Book agent! Now that's exciting. Good luck!

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

My mom would probably have said that about me at his age... "no work ethic". It was based on incomplete information, and only now that I am in my thirties does she see how hard I bust ass. My mom worked hard her whole life and I got my work ethic from her (thanks, mom!) If Robin sees you working hard, it will probably rub off on him sooner or later. It's hard being a boy his age, especially if he is expected to expend effort at activities he doesn't give a shit about.

He's probably going to turn out just fine, is all I'm saying.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Hope you're right.

[nokomisjeff.livejournal.com]

Max will have a lot of fun trying to balance the budget in 2022 when all of the boomers are lined up to "Get their piece of the pie."

You have good looking kids.

Aloha,

Jeff

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Hey! I'm hopin' my piece of the pie is apple with ice cream! :-)

Good to see you posting. You & Denise are in my thoughts.

[original-broad.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know, but ever since I've been reading your LJ I've perceived your kids as being some of the best raised young-uns I've heard about... So I would of course immediately vote for your son for president. He could never be president, of course, but maybe he could be mayor or senator and actually do the real work?

And, the camera dynamic is really interesting. I thought all the kids these days were constantly phot0graphing themselves for their myspace pages, and that it was instead rather hard to rip them away from their cameras or picture-phone devices? Me myself has also always had a camera in tow, but it is only in the last few years that I have felt that people are more comfortable with its presence, because everyone is doing it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read T.H. Whites's The Sword In the Stone? The education of King Arthur at the hands of Merlin? Believe it or not, I actually plotted Max's early education similarly. I don't believe in destiny, yet I've always had</> a sense of destiny about him. Knew the moment I was pregnant with him that I would have a son and that the son would eventually come to look the way he looks now. Very weird and no doubt delusional.

He has a... presence. That's the best way I can define it. His teachers used to break down at middle school conferences with me: "He's just so different. A bit intimidating. I feel like I'm on a mission when he's in the classroom."

Anyway I think he's well-positioned to do whatever he wants with his life. That was the gift I tried to give him as a parent: options. Who knows what he'll do with them?

The camera thing is interesting. Kids do photograph themselves constantly, but usually with amped up cell phones, and they're only interested in pretty pictures. I'm not interested in pretty pictures at all.