I think Aubrey Plaza is taking my speech class. She shows up on Zoom with somebody else’s name in the left corner of her little Zoom box. But she looks and sounds exactly like herself. She’s absent enough for someone with a pretty busy acting schedule. Seeing her every lecture, or at least the lectures she is present for is bringing me back to the time that I practiced yoga for an entire 90 minutes next to Emily Blunt, and did not realize it until my ex-husband mentioned it to me on our way out of the studio. Or the time that Drew Barrymore stood in line two people ahead of me at the same yoga studio. Or, when I realized that the stinky guy to my right in a Sunday night yoga class was Colin Farrell. Once I realized it was him, suddenly his body odor was less of a stink and more of a relief. I didn’t have to feel so self-conscious about my own body odor. In class, I ask “Aubrey” if she and Jenna Ortega are secretly BFFs. Though my student doesn’t understand my reference to the actresses’ shared presentation at the 2023 SAG awards, she does give me an Aubrey-esque deadpan stare. A few other students get it and giggle. One loses it so much that he has to momentarily turn off his camera. I move on, as if I said nothing, but the Aubrey look alike stays on camera, moving so little that I wonder if she has switched to a static shot.
Right before Bed
Everything is clean. The floors are swept and mopped
She finished it all. The to-do list is now crumpled up
In the trash bag, which is neatly tied and in the
Dumpster in the parking lot. Her hair is braided.
She’s wearing her favorite silky night gown
The dog has been walked and fed.
The baby is asleep. Her face and teeth are clean.
The only thing left is to embrace him.
He’s not coming home.
Vaccines
When you are a first-time mom, you don’t realize how much time you are going to spend in the doctor’s office with your perfectly healthy infant. Watching doctors and nurses prick that perfect newborn skin can be unsettling to say the least. I never questioned the value of vaccinating, but I never realized the pain I would feel watching my daughter’s discomfort with them. Once, a nurse told me that I could leave the room when Evelyn got her vaccines so that I wouldn’t have to witness them. I was horrified at the suggestion, and of course I stayed in the room and held my little baby. She was happy and gurgling and the moment she felt the needle she had a look of betrayal that of course triggered my mommy guilt and tears. But I was going to be there. This was part of the foundation I was laying for her to know that no matter what the world does to her, Mommy will always be here. Years later, the Covid lockdown stunted our social lives, and though Evelyn still hated them, it was vaccines that were the key to unlock the door to allow us to go out again.
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