The Dungeon

Shout out, German speakers!

So, my big outing today with Milo was going to buy special low-fat dog food for Olivia at the vet and renewing my driver's license.  Woo hoo!  Because this entailed a trip out to the Main Line, I was glad to be able to catch up on my favorite NPR show, the inimitable Terri Gross' Fresh Air (closely beating out This American Life).  One thing I miss about commuting: NPR.  I know, I know, I'm a huge nerd.

None of that is really the point of the story, "story" being a generous word for what is about to transpire.  So, I'm in the car and listening to a podcast of Fresh Air in which Terri is interviewing a woman named Melissa Febos, whose memoir, Whip Smart, is out in paperback, a podcast that I wouldn't be able to listen to if Milo were much older/able to speak, because then I'd have to deal with the question: "Mommy, what's a dominatrix?" 

Febos, currently an Assistant Professor of Writing at Utica College, wrote a memoir about working her way through college (Sarah Lawrence, weirdly, or perhaps eminently appropriately? Those chicks are a bit out there, I've heard) by working in a midtown Manhattan "dungeon" as a dominatrix.  She was concurrently a heroin addict, although the interview didn't really focus on that aspect of her experience.  She graduated from college, earned an MFA and is now a professor, so she's obviously a very bright woman, and the interview was kind of interesting in that she took a more cerebral approach than one might have expected to writing about her experiences -- essentially the slant seemed more linked to identity politics than pure shock schlock.

But: the whole thing got me thinking, and then feeling a little bit inadequate, and then not at all inadequate.  Wait, no, not inadequate because I've never done heroin or worked in the sex trade; inadequate because if someone ever optioned the movie rights to my nonexistent memoir, that guy who does the voice-overs for film trailers would have to say dramatically: "She's a high school teacher on maternity leave...she blows raspberries on her baby's stomach...she knows the names of characters on Sesame Street...[even lower pitch] and she likes it."  My life consists of the sort of domestic stuff that people don't really write books about, unless somehow the story turns towards a hot-blooded affair or homicide or a meteor headed for the house.  Or, better yet, all three. 

And yet, I figure, this is nothing to feel lame about.  Day in and day out, I get to experience all of the outstanding pleasures of life -- Milo's engagement in his surroundings and his sweet, joy-making smiles; laughter and tenderness with my kick-ass husband; excellent relationships with family and friends; the best dog and cats on Planet Earth.  And yes, these pleasures are tempered by the ear-splitting sound of Milo crying when he's hungry, rainy days, and periods of alternating monotony and frustration, but would I trade in this blessed life for one that a movie studio would be more interested in?  Never.