Worse than the total agony of being in love?

So I have been babysitting like the preteens from Connecticut, that is to say, fiendishly and frequently, and last night, I took care of a couple of children from London, based on a recommendation of one of my New York families. I had never met the kids, seeing as how they are in town from the UK, so the little girl in particular was quite curious about my American upbringing and my previous magazine experience.

The mother, based on her friend's reference and information about me (clearly, I haven't seen them in some time), passed on that I work at a magazine. "Ah, well, no more. I don't work there anymore," I said to the little girl. She did not even try to hide her disappointment; I felt like I had confirmed that the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, et al were all FRAUDS whose money comes from sexual favors and drug smuggling (look again at that fairy "dust"). "So what do you do now?" the little girl asked.


I tried my hardest to make answering phones and wiping the spit-up from my younger charges' mouths sounds as glamorous as a weekend aboard George Clooney's yacht. I failed. So on we talked, including my trying to speak in British accent and getting the kids' feedback on its authenticity, until we circled back to the conversation about my employment, or lack of stable one at that.


Please witness the following conversation:



Girl: "What kind of job are you looking for?"



Me: "Well, I would like to work for a magazine or newspaper; I would really like to write."



G: "Why do you want to write?"



M: "I enjoy doing it."



G: "You should do something else."



M: "Like what?"



G: "You can get a different job and just write."



M: "So what do you think I should do?"



G: "You could be a rockstar, be famous, be a joker*. Instead of just sitting all day and do nothing but boring writing."

Such clarity. I think the rules of the game have changed. And to think a 5-year-old imparted such wisdom. I thought about also asking her relationship advice as she is currently juggling not one but TWO boyfriends, who are 16 and 17. But it was time for bed, and I had this to read.

*comedian

Having a Maryanne Heart in a Stacey World

In the future if I ever have children, they will, I assume, ask me about my days in New York, expecting to hear about debauched nights in which I bartered articles of clothing for a fifth of vodka from a homeless woman in the East Village or snorted lines of attention-deficit meds off a toilet seat in Penn Station. A) That's not how I roll, and B) Mommy was too poor to do anything but patronize the library and when she exhausted her book queue, took to sitting in Barnes and Noble and reading the latest releases.

Brag about THAT, kids. Your mom was, nay, is that cool.

My latest book find (not my find, per se, it's been written about here, here, and here) is Carlene Bauer's "Not That Kind of Girl," and boy howdy (YES, I just said boy howdy), if there were a book more tailored to my past year in New York, please, do share.

Bauer is the quintessential good girl from the looks of it. Raised in a conservative church where the threat of God's apocalyptic wrath loomed everywhere, she aims to hold onto her faith, figure out what being a 20-something person of religious belief means in New York City, and build her career as an established writer in the city. Bauer is influenced as much by Flannery O'Connor as she is by the Bible, Kierkegaard as the teachings of her various churches.

Cue the clacking of my dentures and a shaky hand wielding my cane threateningly at you, but in a time and city where comparable values- evangelically based or not- are a collective anomaly, this book was an incredibly refreshing take and thorough account of one woman's look at reassessing her beliefs and value system. She eventually spurns her cultural and evangelical touchpoints, but Bauer leaves the end on a nebulous but suggestive note. I am not giving the end of this memoir away to suggest that she knows what she has to do.

But above all, regardless of faith, she and I both have reconciled what we are, using one of my first literary inspirations: we're just both Maryannes, when we're expected to be Staceys. And I am Okay with that. Sorry, kiddos, no stories of sleeping around here, but Mommy did get pretty CA-RAZY on some Benadryl once or twice.