A Commonplace Book

My wonderful Reg told me on Monday that his sister’s wedding this weekend is “Black Tie Invited.” In my 40 years of existence, I’ve never attended a “Black Tie Invited” event; that’s just not how I roll.

I panicked, for several reasons: the dress itself, the undergarments, the fact that the top of my body looks like the sun-tanned negative of a V neck T-shirt. The T-shirt tan was the greatest source of fear, thoughts of self-tanner and creating a bigger problem took over. Reg told me not to worry about the money and to get a dress that I liked, to which I responded with a look that told him that in his attempt to be supportive, that he had just issued the very utterance which would bring about a verbal attack. Then, full of (perfectly valid) self-righteousness, I verbally attacked him.

Then, because I spent Tuesday bitching about the Black Tie sitch, I actually managed to solicit some pretty good advice from the maternal (and apparantly more socially with it) English department secretaries about where to shop. Later, the sales person  introduced me to the concept of “social separates,” and I put together a smashing vintage number–think Grace Kelly in Rear Window. And I only worried about the money a little. Reg made his fab homemade pizza for dinner (he’s bad with information, but great with dinner).

Yesterday, I barreled through 26 students essays, thanking God the whole time for preschool and Brownie Troop 119. But then, both preschool and Brownies bit me in ass.

I (as one of three room moms) now have to organize the preschool parents for Gwen’s class to put together an “Appreciation Breakfast” for the staff. One of the other room moms is rebelling because she thinks that monthly appreciation breakfasts are a bit much (I agree) when we’re paying for our kids to attend the preschool. So now there’s a eff-them/go-with-the-flow split among parents that I’m trying to negotiate. In all likelihood, I’ll end up paying for the donuts myself because I’m bad at setting boundaries.

Then later, the two Brownie leaders told me that they’d arranged for our troop to attend a local High School Musical party but that neither of them could take the girls because they have plans. Well Mira, unlike the rest of the 6-10 year old girl population, can’t stand High School Musical (yippee), and Nina is coming in from NY that weekend. I said no, apologized and exited quickly, but I’m pretty sure I enabled some “we-don’t-get-any-help” martyrdom.

It’s been an overwhelming couple of days for me, and I still have to get [three people] ready for the Black Tie wedding, which, by the way, is 60 miles away. TGFJAGA–thank god for Jose [Cuervo] and Gray’s Anatomy.

I recently had an exchange that wasn’t real. My longtime (20 years) hairdresser and friend, Kim, is going through some hard financial times. Her husband lost his job and the family’s health insurance, her son has been sick, and things seem a little bleak right now. So I pulled the sneak-some-extra-money-in trick, the way old ladies do when they want to help “the kids.” In retrospect, that move may not have come off as I had hoped.

It turned out that because Kim was rushing Mira’s haircut to fit in extra clients, the haircut came out a little crooked. I called her the next day to make arrangements to get Mira’s hair fixed. It wasn’t long into the conversation before I was on the end of a daytime-talk-T.V.-style rant about how I think I’m better than her, about how I was talking down to her. She then said, “and I’m going to send you that money back.”

We needed the “keep it real”guy.

I spent too many fruitless minutes trying to explain that I didn’t “have an attitude” and that I wasn’t upset. Kim yelled “I wish all I had to worry about was an eight-year-old’s haircut.” Finally, I ended the call by telling Kim that she had it all wrong and that I couldn’t accept that kind of treatment. I said, “I won’t be back,” and I hung up the phone. I HATE this kind of theater, but she wouldn’t let me speak long enough to end the call properly, and at that point, enough had been said.

Why did money have to complicate things so much? Why was Kim unable to see that money is just money? That human relationships are more important than money? Or was it my fault for sneaking the money. Why was I so uncomfortable with just handing her the money and telling her that I wanted to help? My intentions were to be generous without embarrassing Kim, so on some level, sneaking her the money says that I had to know it was going to offend her.

It was all just so unreal.

But then, when someone who works for tips discusses her overwhelming financial fears with a client, isn’t she kind of asking for money? Wouldn’t it be a little inhuman not to tip more than usual? Or was it the size of the snuck-in tip, twice the cost of the haircuts (or 100%), that was the problem?

And here’s the thing, the real thing—now, after this incident, I do feel better than Kim. I feel superior about the way I handled our conflict. I feel superior that I wasn’t the person who brought up the issue of the money, which, in my opinion, was a little crass.

And if I’m really being real, I have to admit that I arrived at this place of superiority a little too quickly for my own comfort. Because, truth be told, it’s easy for someone who isn’t struggling to support a family with three kids to have a healthier and more spiritual, let’s-just-all-share-it-man attitude about money.

Still, I know that my intentions behind the tip were real, as real as can be. I was connecting with Kim’s money troubles on the most basic of human levels—I knew that it could happen to me at any time. Really, for the typical American family, job loss is not out of the question and serious financial peril is always a possibility. And so I superstitiously felt that by giving Kim a little extra, I could somehow make myself luckier, less likely to suffer a similar reality.

If I could talk to Kim again, this is what I would say. This and, “let’s keep it real.”