no pressure but...

writing, teeth, and the rim of the world

My Mother’s Day gift to myself was a writing retreat in the woods. Three days and two nights of furious, non-stop chip-eating I mean staring out the window willing ideas into fruition writing!!!!!! Trying to finish a feature script I started two years ago, or get further in any one of the other 3 writing projects that have been hanging in the green room of my life for years, while commercial and theatrical auditions, voiceover work, freelance copywriting, and parent-life have taken Center Stage. I booked out with my agents (brave), hurriedly folded 3 loads of laundry so as not to leave Tyler in the total chaotic lurch, and took my new electric car for the smoothest of rides up to the Rim of the World. On the way there, I listened to my favorite podcast Seek Treatment and heard Lukas Gage’s coming-out story, which was deeply-entwined with his audition to play Prince Eric in Sofia Coppola’s short-lived development of the live-action Little Mermaid (!!!!!!). Many, of course, know Lukas from his truly stupendously star turn on White Lotus S1 but he’ll always be the guy from the audition video where the director didn’t know that his microphone was on, to me. <3

I’m in what is assuredly the most beautifully-appointed Airbnb ever created. Each corner is a perfectly-balanced burst of soft, natural color and whimsy. My friend designed it, and I’m not just paying lipservice because she doesn’t even read this substack!

To be honest, I’m aflutter with excitement over all this ample OPEN TIME that stretches out ahead of me, which is absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things, only about 52 hours in the end, but an ocean of time when you realize that my current existence is based around the experience of being BARGED IN ON at all times. BARGED, is the right word. By children, email, one of the 5 ways my phone yells at me hourly, or all the daily Sisyphean tasks required of making the house not look like you’re walking through a wind tunnel whenever the children have left the room. No pressure, but I have to reignite an entire other wing of my desired career in the next 52 hours!!!!!! A career wing that is, as Zoe likes to call her swim goggles when they get fogged up: all soggy!!!!

I mean just LOOKIT this beautiful wainscotting and wallpaper and vintage painting triumvirate!!!!!!

Rowan lost his 5th tooth Saturday morning. Saturday night, we forgot to play tooth fairy. Rowan came into our room in the morning completely dejected, saying this was the 3rd time the tooth fairy has forgotten to come the night the tooth falls out (this is true, having now attended a single Dodgers baseball game I feel confident saying we have a bad batting average with this tooth fairy game). We are constantly having to make up excuses for the tooth fairy - she must have had so many teeth to gather last night, she couldn’t make it all of them in time! She must be out of cash! Her purse was stolen at a movie theater! Etc. etc.

So then Sunday night, after swimming and drinking Negronis in the sun all day, I obviously did not remember to sneak into his room in the dark and leave money in the special pouch he has for his teeth under his pillow. At 6:45am, Tyler whispered, one eye open, “Wait, did you give him tooth fairy money?” and I bolted upright in bed with a gasp. You can fuck up one night of no tooth fairy, but two nights??!? That’s egregious. I grabbed a miraculously-existing dollar from my wallet and snuck into his lightening room and slipped it under his pillow, somehow not waking him at the lightest REM cycle of all, the late morning one!! 15 minutes later, he ran into our room.

“Mommy! The tooth fairy came and left me money but she didn’t TAKE my tooth this time!!!!” Goddammit. I had forgotten about the pouch.

“Maybe she wants you to keep this tooth?” I shrugged.

“Ohhhh yeahhhh!” he assented. “Maybe I should get it dipped in gold, like in the book!”

“…Harry Potter?” I ventured, not remembering a tooth-dipping scene.

“No, the tooth fairy book!” That’s right, I had found him a book about tooth-losing traditions from around the world - most of them are shockingly similar (most of them are throwing the tooth on a roof!) but there was of course the one that Rowan would recall, which was dipping the tooth in gold. Of course, tooth jewelry is not a new concept - in the Victorian era, it was extremely popular to have jewelry made out of milk teeth. This was because it was celebratory to have a child live past losing their first set of teeth (dark!).

“Okay, that is a very cool idea, I’ll look that up…” I said, swiping my phone.

Alas, forgetting to execute tooth fairy duties can cost you what appears to be no less than $275 found anywhere online. We’re hoping he forgets about it, but unfortunately he forgets about absolutely nothing. The other day, he met my friend and à propos of nothing, he told her a story about going fishing at his grandmother’s house. The story had a 3-act arc and several color details. My friend said, “Oh cool, did he just go to visit your in-laws?”

“No,” I said. “That was three years ago. He was 4.”