DROP DEAD LIFE

Last month, I had the honor of read­ing in “The Mama Mono­logues” at Corte Madera Book Pas­sage, along with NY Times best-selling author Kelly Cor­ri­gan and many other tal­ented Writ­ing Mamas. Spe­cial thanks to Dawn Yun, founder of The Writ­ing Mamas, for mak­ing this laugh­ter and tear-filled event pos­si­ble. We raised over $5,000 for Abelina Mag­ana, a North­ern Cal­i­for­nia mother of three who was shot 15 times and lived to tell. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to Abelina and her chil­dren, all of whom are still very much in need of our help, please send a check to: Attn: The Mag­ana Fam­ily Fund, Bank of Marin, 1450 Grant Avenue, Novato, 94945. Please enjoy this video of my piece, “You Think You Know,”...

On Father’s Day, I hold the wristwatch—a stain­less steel Bell & Ross—and notice the delayed clicks of the white sec­ond hand. My thumb moves in cir­cu­lar motions across the water­proof glass. I’m sur­prised by its weight. Erik, my 29-year-old hus­band, pleaded with me for this expen­sive watch, but I said, “You know we can’t afford that right now.” We were sav­ing money to buy our first house in over-priced Marin County, California. “Hyla, he’s going to give it to me for one-third the cost.” Oh, Erik. “Why do I have to be the one who has to say no?” Erik put me in charge of our finances after he’d accepted that his impetu­ous spend­ing habits weren’t help­ing us save. We were newly preg­nant with our sec­ond...

  Keira, my five-year-old daugh­ter, whined, “I don’t want to talk to any­one,” from under her pur­ple, fuzzy blan­ket. She did not want start going to therapy. She had recently returned from school one too many times, say­ing “nobody likes me,” or “I’m not smart,” or “nobody wants to be my friend.” But that was as far as the con­ver­sa­tion ever went. She really didn’t want to talk to any­one. Not even me. I pulled the cov­ers back, expos­ing her angry, brown eyes. “That’s just it, honey. It isn’t good if you don’t talk about your feelings.” She wrapped her front teeth around the base of her thumb’s cuti­cle and chewed on the skin. “I don’t have any feelings.” “Honey, you’ll be going to see Steve....

Match​.com. E-Harmony. Yahoo Per­son­als. J-Date. Yup, I signed up for them all. I was a mama on a mis­sion to find love online. More sites, more options. I had tried the club scene. Blar­ing music. Dim lights. Too much booze. “Nice toes,” one guy had said, look­ing first at my feet and then straight at my chest. Tall, dressed in black slacks, button-down blue shirt, full head of blonde hair. He cer­tainly was attractive. But way too young and way too inter­ested in my breasts. Tall, dressed in black slacks, button-down blue shirt, full head of blonde hair. He cer­tainly was attractive. But way too young and way too inter­ested in my breasts. “Nice toes?” The white tips of my toe­nails peeked out from my three-inch-high red, strappy...

For three hours, the grasshopper-like chirps call out from the defib­ril­la­tor. Three hours. This entire time, I con­tinue to write sec­tions of my mem­oir, Drop Dead Life, try­ing to pre­tend the beep­ing isn’t there. If the beep­ing is there, that means we really own a defib­ril­la­tor. That means I actu­ally need to be ready to pull out the child-sized pad­dles and jump-start my daugh­ters’ hearts. It’s been a rough few weeks. We just vis­ited the pedi­atric car­di­ol­o­gist at the Oak­land Children’s Hos­pi­tal and this was the first year in which my new hus­band, Evan, and I were com­pletely hon­est with Tatiana, 8, and Keira, 6, about their chances of inher­it­ing their birth daddy’s genetic heart...

Tatiana, my eight-year-old daugh­ter, begins to cry. “Mom-my! I’m not talk­ing to you. You are mak­ing me so sad.” Her curly blonde hair flies every­where, as if being blown by a fan. She stomps into the bath­room, slams the door, and locks her­self in. All morn­ing, Tatiana has not been lis­ten­ing, and I’m fed up with hav­ing to repeat my words six times just to be heard. Deep breath, I tell myself. I call through the bath­room door, “Honey, come out here.” To my sur­prise, she twists the knob right away, but her sobs con­tinue ris­ing like a helicopter. “Come sit here.” Tatiana curls in my lap, mak­ing her lanky body com­pact. She blows her nose on her orange sun­flower dress. “I know we’ve all had colds and that...