Author Archive

Lisa et al.

Readers, we don’t know when/if we’ll ever be back in this format. So, we’re leaving you with a sentence and a visual to remember us by as you imagine/follow us on our adventures.*

Before we do, there is someone we need to acknowledge. Without this woman, we would not have made it this far. This woman was our second wind, our end-of-week lifeline. Sharon Harris has been our guest blog coordinator for the last who-knows-how-long. She’s the one who’s helped to bring you all the fabulous Friday posts. Sharon, thank you, thank you. When I finally meet you in New York in a few months, I’m taking you out for the NYC version of a Biggie Frosty–a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity.

Sarah and Manfriend are happily dating. Sarah found something to remind her of him while she’s living in the desert.

Lisa and Tagg are moving 2 blocks away from her favorite bread bakery in Manhattan. (This makes her about as happy as the time they went to Disneyland together…)

Rebecca and Levi are having a girl.

Louise and Tom are in Vienna, where Louise has realized that she and her fake British accent are able to convince tourists that she’s Julie Andrews’s younger sister. She’s making enough money to drown the students who annoy her in Sacher Tortes.

*Follow us on our personal blogs. Here for Sarah, here for Rebecca and here for Louise. I don’t have one yet. Tagg and I are considering getting a new he said/she said blog together. If we do, I’ll post an announcement on this site before the end of June. Check back July 1. Also, please join the Facebook group, “The Apron Stage.” Thanks again to Liz for setting it up!

Lisa

Back when I was in undergrad, I had a cure-all solution for the blues: I’d drive to Wendy’s with a girlfriend, order a frosty and pretend that frosty was an Academy Award. In the car, we’d improvise speeches. We’d make our voices catch right after we mentioned our parents. We’d say how we never expected this to ever happen to us. We’d giggle and gush and go through every cliché in the book. By the time we got home, we’d always feel better.

Writing a final post for The Apron Stage makes me crave a frosty. For the last year and a half, this little corner of the internet has been my clean, well-lighted place*. And we always need more of those in our lives, don’t we?

I never considered myself much of a writer before Rebecca roped me into being Tuesday’s child. I blame my childhood: When I was five, my older sister and cousin found my first attempt at poetry entitled “Oh! Oh! It’s Spring!” and (rightfully) mocked me. They might have also discovered my acrostic “Fish” which began with the line “Floating when dead” and laughed as they rolled on the floor. Cheryl and Lee, how could you squelch such buds of brilliance? How?! Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

(Sorry I’m late today, Readers. I’ve been on a red-eye all night and finally got the chance to sit down at my computer.)

About 2 years ago, I went on a date with a wonderful guy. He was handsome. Intelligent. Hardworking. And get this: He liked me. A lot. There was only one problem… I had a serious case of it’s-not-you-it’s-me. I just wasn’t feeling the zing, Readers.

I called Rebecca after one of our dates, “He’s everything any woman could ever want in a man.  But I’m just not attracted to him.”

“I’m emailing an article that you need to read,” Rebecca said.

That article was Lori Gottlieb’s “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough”. (An article that was so popular Ms. Gottlieb expanded it into a book.)

As the title suggests, Ms. Gottlieb argues that modern women are too picky and that it’s better to marry someone you respect but don’t have romantic feelings for than to spend your life alone.  She writes:

“I don’t mean to say that settling is ideal. I’m simply saying that it might have gotten an undeservedly bad rap. As the only single woman in my son’s mommy-and-me group, I used to listen each week to a litany of unrelenting complaints about people’s husbands and feel pretty good about my decision to hold out for the right guy, only to realize that these women wouldn’t trade places with me for a second, no matter how dull their marriages might be or how desperately they might long for a different husband. They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize that marriage ultimately isn’t about cosmic connection—it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tagg

I try to maintain my manly dignity, but it can be hard. Unmanly things happen. They just do. Things like:

-  Eating cottage cheese;

-  Dancing in front of your entire elementary school while wearing footed pajamas and an elf hat (although dancing with Autumn Burnside while in said outfit did help a bit; however, seeing my brother go out on date with Autumn many years later did not); or

-  Playing the Dirt Clod Game.

Don’t know that game? Yeah, neither did I until about twenty-eight years ago. Here’s, more or less, how I learned.

MY BROTHER: You want to play the Dirt Clod Game?

ME: The what game?

MY BROTHER: It’s fun. We’ll take turns. Go stand down there.

“Down there” was a switchback 15 feet below him. I make my way down there.

MY BROTHER: Hold still.

He lobs a dirt clod at me. It misses.

ME: Hey!

MY BROTHER: No moving. Your turn is next.

Lob, thud. Lob, thud. Clods explode. Dust rises.

MY BROTHER: Hold still.

Lob—for some reason I do hold still; I didn’t know they made clods that big—smack. Dirt in my eyes. Dirt in my ears. Dirt in my nose. Dirt in the air around me. Dirt sifting out of my hair. Dirt in my spit on the ground.

Dogs know when you’re laughing at them. They strike a very recognizable posture. I struck that posture then. I can still see my brother laughing from 15 feet above.

ME (hurt and mad and fighting tears): It’s my turn.

MY BROTHER: Umm… that’s actually the end of the game.

And then he left. And with him, he took some part of my budding manliness. And still down below, with no one watching, I started to cry.

I try to maintain my manly dignity, but it can be hard. Unmanly things happen.

Sometimes, I’m sure Lisa and I end up in our own Dirt Clod Game. Like when I watch her for a while, as she uses an old fashion calculator to sum data already in a spreadsheet, and then I say, “I could show you how that could go a little faster.” Lob. Or when she says to me, “Another pink shirt? Hmm.” Smack.

But maybe manly (and feminine) dignity doesn’t crumble when the dirt flies. Maybe this is the best and only chance to see dignity hold together. Will I refuse to play the game despite the wonderful clods my friends and loved ones provide me? Will I stop long enough to even realize I’m even playing? Some lobs are so stealthy I can convince myself something just slipped off the cliff.

Or if I’m on the receiving end, can I make the choice that seems most likely to assure some dignity and remember to “write kindnesses in marble and injuries in dust”?

PS—Despite the post, and my memories of that day, I have to say that the Dirt Clod Game was a stroke of brotherly genius. And we’ve laughed about since the sting wore off, which was at least 5 months ago.

Tagg

After yesterday’s paean to manhood—to its effort, its action, archetypes—I was stoked.

So manly was its manliness it made me throw out my previous subject—something effete involving William James, scented candles, and the overkill of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I needed something more.

So, I went back to brainstorming.

I went to grade school days. I remembered Mandy McCurdy. Surely there must be something good to write about Mandy. She was my circle-yes-circle-no, brownie-uniform-wearing, first grade, first crush.

We never got any closer than pointing at each other across the playground, unless you count the sweaty pencil smudges on the notes delivered by our go-betweens. But I still can remember listening to a ‘45 of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” on my Fisher Price record player, pining for what I never had. (“You came and you gave without taking… Oh, Mandy.”) Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

… what’s making me feel worse: the not-so-great mussels I had last night at dinner or Arizona’s new immigration legislation. Either way, I think that a night on the bathroom floor exempts me from posting duties.

Also, for my favorite take on the immigration bill came from Seth Meyers via Weekend Update on SNL. (Watch from 0:29 to 1:08.)

Happy Tuesday, all.

Lisa

On January 14th, 2005 a friend and I were bemoaning our lack of love interests. It’d been much, much too long since we’d been kissed. I believe I even quoted Rhett Butler: “Do you know what your problem is, Scarlet? You need to be kissed and often and by someone who knows how.” Amen, Brother. We both said. Amen.

Then my friend perked up, “Lisa, you need to do what I do. You need to get behind the set a date program.”

I blinked back, confused.

“You know, like the missionaries do. Only they set dates by which they’ll have x number of baptisms. You need to set a date by which you will kiss a guy you like.” Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

One of my favorite scenes from Walt Disney’s Peter Pan finds TinkerBell standing on a hand mirror. She admires herself, fixes her hair, smiles. But when she examines her hips, she does an adorable little double take. A few frames later, her suspicions are confirmed when those same hips keep her from shimmying through the keyhole to retrieve Peter’s runaway shadow.

I had a Tinkerbell moment last week. Two, in fact. The first occurred when the seam by the rear pocket on my favorite pair of capris tore. At work. Possibly as some students noticed. (Can’t wait to read those teacher evaluations at the end of the semester: Lisa is bursting with excitement! She exposed me to new ideas! I appreciate her bottom-up approach to teaching!) The second came when I thought I’d wear my NYC power suit to work last Friday. I got into the pants…but there was no way I could sit down comfortably. I ended up wearing a dress that was only slightly more form fitting than a muumuu. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

When Tagg and I were planning our wedding, we searched high and lo for the right song to play during our first dance as a married couple. Even though we’d dated for almost two years, we had never managed to find “our song.”

Okay, so we actually had managed to find our song. Several of them, in fact. But they weren’t songs we could play at a wedding.

Don’t believe me? Check out this list of Tagg/Lisa classics:

“Hot Love Highway” (A song written and performed by David Brent, the British Office’s Michael Scott.)
“Jerry Likes My Corn” (Perhaps the worst song to ever grace a Broadway stage. If Tagg ever wants to make me laugh, he sings this one to me.)
“Break Up on the Phone” (A classic written by my dear husband chronicling all the times he has—you guessed it—broken up on the phone. I’m still waiting for him to write a verse for me.)

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Two nights before the event, it finally hit me: We needed some Sinatra. Some classic Sinatra. Some “buh bah ba-da-da, buh bah ba-da-da”, toe tapping, vagabond blues melting away, “I want to be a part of it” Sinatra. New York was, after all, the backdrop of our courtship. Tagg spent the morning of our wedding day practicing his dance moves with his best friend. I spent the morning in a make-up chair humming the lyrics. When we finally took the dance floor, we felt odd being up there by ourselves and invited all our family and guests to come and join us. They did.

It’s one of my favorite memories of that day. That crowded dance floor was like my experience in New York. It started off lonely, but quickly became a city brimming with people I love—people who were living in the city too or sleeping on my air mattress during weekend getaways. I cried as we danced remembering all that I loved about Manhattan and my time there.

But I have come to love my life in Arizona, and it has transformed from my address to my home as quickly as New York did. Tagg’s family and childhood friends surround us. The citrus trees are in bloom and their smell is intoxicating. (I’ve never been one to wear perfume, but if someone could bottle the smell of the valley in Spring, I would start.) I walk my dog along the canal with a wonderful new friend and then to La Grande Orange for our daily bread. Every morning, Tagg squeezes me a fresh glass of juice. Every Sunday, I teach a group of rambunctious 11-year-old boys. I take the train to ASU to my new teaching job and marvel in the buzz of campus. Friends have relocated here and we spend hours together in our kitchen cooking and eating and talking. I wake up feeling incredibly lucky to be in a place in my life that feels—that is—sacred. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

Sometimes I try to write a good post. I have 6 different windows open with 6 different drafts going. And then magically all 6 fall like pathetic, amateur soufflés. Splat. That’s what happened yesterday and this morning. Fizzzzzzzzzz, splat.

To make myself feel better about such things, I visit fail blog, which often makes me laugh until tears squeeze out of the corners of my eyes. This fail blog classic never ceases to make me feel better about my failures. I also visit regretsy*, a website which finds all the really horrid, crazy stuff that some less-than-talented crafters try to sell on etsy. Check this out, for instance.

This is the best I can do today. I’d apologize, but I’m pretty sure this is still better than a Power Puff Girls dress that’s marketed as a vintage Mother Goose one.

*A warning: Both sites have posts that might be offensive. Peruse at your own risk.