For the love of Benedict (to Hamlet I go)

So. If you've read Em-i-lis for any length of time, you probably know what an enthused fan of Benedict Cumberbatch I am. Minus "The Blind Banker" episode in Season 1 and the overdone premier of Season 3, Sherlock was a complete thrill of a show, and Cumberbatch so perfectly inhabited the title character role that I never felt I was watching anyone except the animation of the man Conan Doyle wrote about so wonderfully. When you witness acting that is so completely transformational (in a seemingly effortless way) that you literally no longer see a visage you might know so well through magazines, other roles, general celebrity culture and so forth, but rather that very character come to life, it's real magic. Most actors can't pull this off; they are always themselves, just wearing another's name and clothes. Julia Roberts, though I like her, is always  Julia Roberts. On the contrary, Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis are never Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis. I mean, Lincoln played himself in that film, right?

In any case, through his various roles such as Peter Guillam in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate (a forgettable film), from Charles Aiken in August: Osage County to Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness and back to Sherlock again, I have come to really admire Cumberbatch's range as well as his incredibly entrancing cat-like green eyes. Yes, I have me a grade-school crush. He can definitely look goofy, and if you stare at any individual aspect of his face for too long, it may appear vaguely off. I think the sum of the parts sing with sexiness but I'll give it to those who disagree. My dear friend, C, for example, is skeeved out by my Ben. But really, that man can wear.a.suit. like nobody's business. And he seems so flipping nice. Charm oozes from his poreless face. Gah!

After a long day last week during which I felt quite sick and Lords Pillington and Poutington had made me see red for three hours straight, Tom came home to find me in bed, coloring in my Benedict colouring book (from London, natch) with my top-shelf pencils that I don't share with the kids. I think he loved me a little bit more with this discovery. Sweet man.

Benedict is saying "Yay!" because I've drawn him a hot meal but today I'm pretending it's because I'll be in his audience one night. Har! Friends regularly send me photos or links of Benedict, keeping me up to date on his goings-on. How do you think I found out about this colouring book, for the love? The Pound Ridge Scone Lady! Thank you, Liz!

And thanks to one my college besties, also an Emily, I learned a couple months back that none other than my Benedict was to play Hamlet on stage! In London! For a twelve-week run starting August 2015!

I am certain she did not imagine that upon receiving this news I IMMEDIATELY marked the date in my calendar that tickets for this event were to go on sale. That would be tomorrow. And so yesterday, I started plotting, checking calendars, making a username for the theatre and checking seat plans. And I talked to a friend who had just returned from bringing her kids to London's Harry Potter World. And what was once a grand idea started feeling like a life imperative.

I have never once regretted making the effort to see a phenomenal theatrical production. Often, I've gone with my mom or by myself. On Broadway, we've seen Daniel Radcliffe in Equus, Alan Rickman in Private Lives, Philip Seymour Hoffman (I'm still stinging from the loss of him) and John C. Reilly in Sam Shepard's Private Lives. And here, at D.C.'s Kennedy Center, we saw Cate Blanchett stunningly portray Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

During a weekend trip to New York with Tom, he chose to walk the High Line while I went to The Normal Heart, lucky to have found a last-minute ticket. I was spellbound, utterly awestruck, and continue to feel that show's profound impact on me. Ellen Barkin and Joe Mantello were incredible. Last summer, I took the train to and from NYC one Saturday to see Tom Hanks in Lucky Guy, a posthumous production of Nora Ephron's play about reporter Mike McAlary. Hanks was leaving the production three days later, and I just felt I couldn't miss seeing him. Again, the spontaneous seat I purchased late was terrific, and the entire cast was as great as Hanks was. It was marvelous.

Ages and ages ago, I saw the original cast in The Phantom of the Opera and an early showing of Les Mis, both with my dad and both on Broadway. I loved Rent and was, despite myself, really impressed by The Lion King. Oddly enough, the two most underwhelming shows I've seen (and the ones for which we paid the most for tickets) are the ones most built up: The Book of Mormon and South Pacific. Such is often the case with overwrought reviews: it's hard to live up to hype, and that's why I don't often read reviews anymore.

My sister is the trained actress and knows infinitely more than I about this world, but I do love the sense of being utterly transported by truly masterful performances. There is something about the stage versus the screen, something raw and live. Especially in tiny theaters like NY's Circle in the Square, you're there, right in it. You can see the actor's sweat fly, you can hear the remarkably few times they stumble over a word. It's intense, in a really great way. Yet another reason we mustn't cut funding for arts education or for the Arts in general. They are so critical for a broadly lived education, life and worldview.

This all came back to me this morning when I went online to The Barbican Theatre's site. I was getting a place in the queue, readying my cart for any late-August (2015) tickets I might be able to procure. But I got confused and because one of my life mantras is "It NEVER hurts to ask," I called The Barbican.

Hannah with a beautiful British accent answered and told me that if I were an Orange Member of The Barbican, I could certainly buy two tickets today. Swear to god y'all, it took me 0.No seconds to buy a membership to a theater I won't visit until my membership has expired. Do NOT tell my husband this. Hannah said I was saving myself gobs of stress and time in tomorrow's queue which would certainly be mayhem; 10,000 folks were already queued up! Agreed and with no qualms, Hannah. Right then and there she secured two tickets for me, good ones for next August 21. We finished things up, exchanged goodbye pleasantries and I have been on a wild, whooping high ever since.

Tom was so supportive of turning my crush into our 2015 family trip but exactly that meh about the play, so I called my sister to see if she could come in from Italy and use my second ticket. She put it on her calendar right then and there. Her hubby and son (who will then be just about 9 months old) will come too so it's all turning out to be a fabulous family get-together with the added bonuses of London, Benedict and Harry Potter. The kids are off their heads, but not more than am I.

And you know what I later realized? All of Yotam Ottolenghi's restaurants are in London. Mon dieu. I am the luckiest gal!

Diapers a gone-gone? Dinner

If you've not gotten your Benedict fix in a day or so, here you go. Works for me. Thank me later. As an aside, I can't tell you how much I sometimes wish his name were nicknameable (because, let's be honest, it doesn't just roll off the tongue). But it's not. B.Cum? Epic fail. Ben? Not a chance! Benny? A you-can't-possibly-know-who-this-guy-is offense.

I lurve him!

People, it seems that diapers as a needed product in my home will soon be nothing more than a pee-scented memory. At least until incontinence or grandchildren come along. And if the boys' statements are any sort of accurate foreshadowing ("Since we can't marry you, we're not going to get married. We're going to live together in a house next door to yours. It's gonna be full of candy, snakes, and iPads. Maybe, maybe we'll find a lady and she'll help us get a baby and then we'll give it to you." WTF, people?), incontinence will come sooner and we won't be talking about that or diapers or any such thing.

But back to the present. Ol has declared that he wants to be "dwy at night!" and so we're off. Towels in the bed, the pee-alarm strapped to his jammies, interrupted sleep at night for the greater good of dwyness at night.

I admit there is little more deliciously darling than a chubby toddler toddling around in nothing more than a diaper. That is sweetness and light at its best, and Ol can definitely still make me swoon in that maternal "his butt and its functions are SO cute" way. But undies are cool too, so I am his biggest cheerleader right now. If he wants it, moi aussi, though then my babies' babyhood will really be gone. Sad but not, poignant but such is life. I took about 4 million pics of his diapered bottom so I do have the ability to look back. And I surely will!

T worked late tonight so I went whole-hog (fauxg) Meatless Monday: farro with roasted broc, leeks, Meyer lemon and hazelnuts with blood orange-infused olive oil and goat cheese. Me likey!

Benedict, great article on parenthood and (many) thoughts on it

After watching the final episode of this season's Sherlock last night (how three episodes constitutes a "season" is beyond me. And no, I don't much care that each is 90 minutes; I still wish for more because I'm borderline obsessed), I was fully set to write a fan club tribute about Benedict Cumberbatch today. Seriously, though it pains me to say this because such a teen crush at my age is slightly embarrassing, I could be his club president. He is SO talented and sexy. I haven't "felt this strongly" about a celebrity stranger since Jani Lane, lead singer of Warrant, circa 1989. I taped a cut out, glossy magazine photo of him on my childhood wall and slept next to him for years. Truth be told, his looks were terribly 1980s and didn't come through the era well at all. Additionally, he died of alcohol poisoning back in 2004. I believe my adoration of Benedict* shows how significantly my taste has evolved. See pictorial comparison below for proof.

Em crush of 1989 - 1993, give or take ↖

Em crush, present day ↑

Yet I woke up on the hormonal migraine, grumptastic side of the bed this morning and really have never recovered, not least because cold rain prompted a two-hour school start delay. This winter and the generally hyperbolic, overwrought, hand-wringing responses to it in my area (D.C.) have led me to wonder if all peoples purported to live north of Boston are really a lie being foisted upon us all. I mean if we cannot handle cold rain, how could anyone live in more severe climes?? Surely no one in Buffalo! Saskatchewan! Siberia! could possibly remain alive in temperatures that near the terrifying zero mark.

Are snow plows and warm parkas and salt and heated interiors really such pitiful counterspells to cold precipitation? I grew up in Louisiana for god's sakes, and I feel perfectly confident driving on chilled roads. Has a plague of winter anxiety swept over us like an amnesiac ether? Snow, sleet and cold aren't new, for the love. People have handled these climatic challenges for millennia. I mean seriously, hasn't the postal service taken enormous pride**, for decades!, in their determination to deliver mail despite rain, snow, heat and gloom of night?

All this to say that my ode on Benedict just didn't flow this morning. An ode on a crush must come from a happy place, not a dour, sour one.

As such, change of subject.

Do you read New York Magazine? I've been a subscriber for years; the mag is excellent journalism, a weekly crossword and highbrow gossip at their best. I can hardly think of a better evening than a freshly delivered NY Mag, pen and glass of wine by my side. Yes, I do my crosswords in pen, and I am extraordinarily protective of them too; ask T or J. They tried to participate the other night before I'd even had a thorough once-over, and I nearly locked the 'zine in Fort Knox to keep them away. If I get stumped, only then might I seek consultation.

Two weeks ago, the cover article was "The Problem with Teenagers is Their Parents" by Jennifer Senior, one of my favorite journalists. She has recently published a book entitled, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, which I look forward to reading. Additionally, she will be presenting it tomorrow night, 7pm, at DC's own Politics & Prose bookstore; I intend to go, but damnit, you just never know.

Anyway, I found the article totally absorbing and thought-provoking despite the absence of teens in my house. The primary thesis is that while teenage adolescence really rocks some kids' worlds, for the most part, it's the parents who struggle and are beset by anxiety, not their teens:

"Is it possible that adolescence has a bigger impact on adults than it does on kids?"

The arguments made, by Senior and a number of experts whom she interviewed, include the perhaps unsurprising notion that as kids need less from their parents, their parents feel hurt, displaced and somewhat lost; the "who am I" question forced upon adults as the kids who've been the centers of their worlds pull away and mature. As the parents (mostly moms) wrestle with these feelings, they try to hold on even more tightly. It's not hard to see how attempts at growing up and out in dissonant concert with attempts to cling and remain important could yield fraught relationships.

Another point clearly presented is that adolescence might be rougher on parents because their child's burgeoning independence illumines the absence of other things -a job, interests, hobbies- in one or both of the parents' lives, "exposing what's fulfilling about it and what is not." Though raising younger children can also make people question how to parent and in what manner (staying at home, seeking help, continuing to work full time, etc), Senior suggests that teenagers force us to think of these issues in different, intensely acute ways.

This might by why so many parents struggle mightily with empty-nest syndrome when their children head off to college. When their foci are gone, it makes sense to me that parents would then reflect on the years spent raising them, considering what was sacrificed to do so, weighing whether or not the things given up or delayed were worth it, thinking "What now?" Surely many parents feel satisfied but as surely there are others who feel bereft at the time in their own lives they've lost, or at least the parts of their own identities they neglected to tend.

It seemed to me that my mother had a very difficult time adjusting after my sister and I left. I remember her once calling me at college, in tears in the milk aisle, bawling because, since my sister didn't drink milk, she no longer needed to purchase gallons. I remember wishing I could hug her through the phone. Once my sister left, Mom did return to graduate school, get a masters degree and teach, but she also still feels that life is only at its best when we are all together. While I love how much she loves us and our nuclear family, I do admit to hoping that I don't feel as she does. That I do, rather, feel the way I think I will which is that I did my job well, I loved it, but I'm damn thrilled to be in my renaissance. To have time to deeply explore and live in a way that I simply can't right now. To welcome my children home, always and happily, but not pine for them and their regular presence in my house.

Though I can't know now, it feels that I will definitely not miss some of the more inane elements of child-rearing. I can already say with near certainty that when I no longer have to encourage and manage excellent tooth brushing, clean bums and eating with utensils, I will be thrilled. I suspect that when I don't have to try so damn hard to simply be a person (as distinct from Mom), to maintain my identity and interests in stolen, nonlinear moments chock full of interruptions, I will feel less scattered; I believe there will be a deep happiness there.

This is not to say that I'm not happy now, but my experience of motherhood is that it sits on the fulcrum of fulfillment and desperation. That has been unexpected and is a hard place to perch, day after day, year after year. Every day brings new demands to improvise, teach, support, struggle, fail, feel terribly confused and utterly alone. Simultaneously, every day brings the joy of your child learning something new; the pride in watching him shake hands and say thank you, just like you've taught and reminded him so many times before; the unfiltered, no holds barred hugs and kisses that will, at some point, become things of the past.

I know that I will weep for those moments in the future, as I swim in the nostalgia of memory. But I also hope that the efforts I've made and continue to make to be a woman, friend, wife and individual will sustain me in deep and happy ways when my children are grown. The thought of feeling utterly unmoored at that time is terrifying and serves as a terrific motivation to keep current with myself, to make time for me, my marriage, my friends and my interests. Does this mean that at times I make a choice to value those things more than my kids? In a way, it does. They are always primary in my thoughts, yet I believe the adage, "a happy mom is a happy home," is truer than its platitudinous phrasing sounds.

To me it means not only that if I'm happy I have more happy energy to share but also that I am modeling for my boys all that a mother/woman can be, deserves to be, should be respected for being. If my sons marry, have kids and are not the primary parent, they should know that if their partner (woman or man) takes on that role, it is not to the exclusion of his/her self. It is in addition to. So I feel I need to model that. To show that even though I am here, always and intensely, I am also more than that. I have needs, limits, desires, and interests in addition to and well beyond them.

What I get tangled up in sometimes is the difference between who I was before kids and who I am now. Then, I was well-educated, well-traveled, social, happy and dying to be a wife and mom. Because I hadn't found a career about which I was truly passionate, I looked to marriage and motherhood both because I wanted those things but also because I thought they would be the answer. That because they would need what I wanted to give, they would be the source of peace and satisfaction for which I'd long searched.

Once I had Jack, however, I started to become my truest self, a self that is still well-educated, well-traveled (though now slightly less so, damnit), social (though with less energy), happy and dying to also explore the passions I didn't know I had. The timing feels shitty at times, and negotiating the two poles is rather a conundrum. But without my sons, would I be this woman? I think not and so I am indebted and grateful and thrilled. But it's not easy.

To bring it back to Senior's article, I guess I would again say that I hope my experience as the mom of adolescents is different than the women she interviewed and the many out there like them. No judgment there, just hope. I see myself as mother as a way-station of the most serious sort. I was gifted with incredible, unformed beings, and it is my privilege and most serious duty to raise them well, thoughtfully and with every ounce of love and strength and energy I have. But it doesn't stop there. No, my privilege includes sending them out into the world, to make it a better place, to touch others' lives the way they have mine, to make their own mark on this world. Because of that perspective, I feel it would be a disservice to them, my husband and myself if I didn't keep anything for me, didn't tend to myself along the way. I don't want to have worked this hard for that long to then feel bewildered by or unexcited about the time left before me.

Food for thought, friends.

*Puritanical thinkers out there, rest assured that my husband knows of and is comfortable with my damn celebrity crush. **"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." is inscribed on the wall of a NYC post office and is often invoked with pride. That said, the postal service has no official creed or motto.