You probably won't notice me in my black Victorian mourning gown.
I will be accompanied by a short mad scientist who is carrying beakers of water with food coloring in them. On a leash will be our dog, dressed in his Zorro cape. He is being stubborn about the cap, so we will settle for the cape.
Bing will stay home and hand out treats. She is not planning on wearing a costume, although I have told her that she would make an excellent court jester. She was not amused.
Our treats are kit kats, which is a family favorite and we plan to eat the leftovers quickly and neatly.
And now I must go powder my face a pristine pale and find my blood red lipstick.
And where did I put my veil?????
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
The one about Sisters....
My sisters came to my city for a visit last weekend. Well, two of them came. The other one lives here. I have three sisters. Patrice, Celia and Jessie. They are all different, all unique, and I swear to god I must have been adopted because I do not fit in this family at all. But, they love me anyway and I love them. I don't think we look anything alike, but people are constantly telling us that we not only look alike, but talk alike, move alike and have the exact same expressions.
Jessie's husband, Dwayne, says that we all have the same get the fuck out of my way look when we are angry. "It's all in the chin," he says. "You all have those pointy witch chins anyway and when you get mad, the chin gets all jutty and quivery."
Patrice has almost black hair. Celia is a natural blond. None of us can figure this out as NO ONE in our family is blond, our Da had black hair and our Mother, red. But, Liv has blond hair too and her father is an American Indian. My hair used to be this mousy brown color; now it is mostly gray. Jessie has brown hair too, but it has these gorgeous natural red highlights in it that look like she pays hundreds of dollars at the salon every month. She doesn't.
Patrice and Celia have our Mother's dark blue eyes, Jessie, our Da's Paul Newman light blue. Me? Mine are this odd hazel, green, blue color and they change with my mood. If I am happy, they are more blue, if I am sick, they go all greenish and if I am sad, they turn into this muddy hazel color. Bing says it is the vampire in me.
Let me introduce you to my sisters:
Patrice is the oldest. She is in her late 50's, and is the shortest in a family of shorties. She is about 4'9. Her hair is long and thick, almost blue black and gorgeously thick. She looks about twenty years younger than she is. She is small wristed and dainty ankled like the rest of us, but she has cuuuurrrvvvees and really big boobs (or loodies, as we call them, for some odd reason.)She's all Annette Funicello. She is retired now, but managed a doctor's office for years and after she retired, her boss offered her huge bucks to come back. She didn't. She and her husband, Tom, are very wealthy and she spends her time now puttering in her garden, re-decorating her house, and being a staunch Republican.
Celia, is in her mid 50's and looks like a fragile Dusty Springfield. She is about 4'10 and teeny tiny. She probably weighs about 80 pounds soaking wet yet she walks for miles every day, worried that if she doesn't, she will suddenly turn into Mrs. Santa Claus. She has been a SAHM all of her life and now she is a SAHG (stay at home grandma..she babysits her grandkids.)Her husband is one of the kindest men I have ever met, Dan. They live in the small town in Iowa where we grew up and she scrapbooks. Celia is the sensitive one in our family. She is shy.
Jessie is in her early 40's. The accident. We tease her about this all of the time. I was nearly 10 when she was born. She is the most like our Mother, fiery and opinionated, stubborn and smart as hell. She was also spoiled rotten growing up, so she tends to be very self involved. She's a teacher and a pillar of the Catholic Church. She actually teaches religion (and math) in the high school in the small town that Celia lives in and she teaches several night classes in religion as well. She is a walking Catholic expert. She is so convinced that I am going to shoot straight to hell that she has begged me to let her make sure that I get extreme unction on my death bed in the hopes that somehow God will have mercy on my soul. She is a neat five feet even and married to Dwayne, a good ole boy and very laid back in the way that small town men often are.
When we all get together, it can be both very fun and entertaining and sort of bizarre. Patrice tries, in her motherly fashion to keep Jessie and I from arguing about religion or politics. We are on opposite ends. Debate with Jessie is interesting to me, though, because she actually knows her stuff. She knows the bible and how the Catholic church stands on every single thing in the world. If you want to know how the church feels about chewing gum, she not only knows, but can probably quote from the article. Our arguments are spirited and just short of menacing at times. One or both of us usually steps back and finally we agree to disagree. But we both know that we are right and that other sister is wrong.
Celia is by far the quietest of us all and the most peace loving. She will never utter a word to hurt anyone if she can help it. Patrice is the eldest, and therefore, our mother figure, she is by far the bossiest and tends to plan all activities when we are together. This time she planned a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant since we are all pasta pigs and then a trip to the playhouse to see a show that she knew would please Jessie because it is religious and me because it has some great quirky moments. Celia is so easy to please that we never worry about her.
Celia and Jessie stayed at Patrice's house for the visit. I do have a spare bedroom, but Patrice has two and her house is far more splendid than mine and the rooms have their own bathrooms and showers, so she wins hand down in the hotel category. Plus, at my house, we have all sorts of green things that bug my sisters from intense recycling to a showerhead that emits just enough water for a person to get clean and not one drop more. MUCH more fun to stay at Patrice's....
When they came by to pick me up for dinner, we all laughed. Because we had all somehow managed to dress in black. This happens so often that we just shake our heads. And true, to form, the following day when we all met for breakfast, we were all wearing pink.
At dinner, Celia and I ordered the angel pasta and meatballs while Patrice and Jessie went for the lasagna. The wine flowed. Much bread was dipped into olive oil and garlic. We all talked, sweetly at first like good sisters in Little Women and then we became bolder. Jessie chided me for not making her daughter go to mass when she stayed at my house last month. I told her that as far as I was concerned, she was 18 and that was that. I didn't stop her, did I?
"Well," Jessie said, swiping her bread through the oil and taking a generous bite, "It was also lifeline Sunday and she missed that too."
Lifeline Sunday?
Apparently, this is a day where good Catholics gather in little right to life groups and stand in a long line to show their support for the movement.
I chuckled. Told her that it was probably best that I hadn't even known that was in town or I might have locked her child in my basement to prevent her attending....
Patrice, sensing a sister brawl brewing, changed the subject. Did we know about Cousin Diana? That new haircut wasn't working....
Brawl averted.
I cleared my throat, told them that I wanted to share something. The sisters braced themselves. This could be anything from sharing that my daughter had decided to take fencing lessons (she has, but I didn't tell them about that) to me getting some sort of racy tatt or piercing. (I do have a tattoo but it was done when I was in my drunken twenties and I would give anything to get rid of it and I have let most of my piercings close up.) But, if Patrice is the bossy one, Celia is the quiet, sensitive one and Jessie is the religious one....I am considered to be the bold one. The one most likely to do something like decide to vacation at a nudist colony (with my saggy loodies? NEVER) or ask them if they want to share a bowl with me. They had trepidations.
I told them that Bing and I had recently bought a half hour phone call from a psychic. It's true. Bing was the one who set up, to my great surprise. She is sooo not inclined to do things like that. But, her Aunt recently died and her grief has been great and now she was having really odd dreams and so she decided to do this after researching this in true Bing fashion to find the psychic with the best record.
I won't even say how much it cost because it was way too much. And while I thought it was interesting and possibly true, I am not wholly convinced. What the hell is it with psychics that when a family member who has crossed decides to "come through" in these sessions, that they can NEVER figure out what their name is? This one said that someone was coming through, a father figure for me and that his name started with a J or a G. I said that yes, this was my father. And later, she said that a female entity was coming through and carrying a flower. Well, the first part of my Mother's name is a flower but why the hell couldn't she simply TELL me her name? Why is it that she could tell me that my Mother was warning me that I needed to get a flu shot since my health was so bad, but she couldn't say her name? I came away from the meeting feeling a little convinced (one piece of information that the psychic gave was a date that was dead on accurate) and a little skeptical (when my Mother "came through" she didn't seem to think it was important that she had disinherited me from her will because I was bi-sexual; it was never even vaguely touched upon.) And poor Bing. Her Aunt never did come through, although a grandmother whom she had never met did and a long dead cousin whom she barely knew did as well.
So, I had mixed feelings about it all and relayed that to my sisters. Patrice and Celia shared my skepticism but admitted that some things seemed eerily accurate. Jessie, however, flat out told me that this sort of shit (she said "stuff") was not only bogus but that it was the work of Beelzebub, plain and simple. She got a little smarty pants about it all, in my opinion so I did what I do best. I began mocking her in my Church Lady voice. ("OH, I don't know...do you think that possibly it could have been....let's see.....SATAN???!!")
As we went on to another subject, Patrice accidentally knocked over a salt shaker and I righted it and then threw a pinch of salt over my shoulder to keep the bad luck away. Jessie thought this hilarious and teased me about my silly superstitions.
Celia spoke about how she had said a novena to Pope John Paul to keep her grandson, who is prone to asthma, healthy this Autumn and guess what? The kid has not had even one minor attack! Jessie nodded in agreement, said that the novena seemed to be working.
I burst out laughing. So....it was SILLY to throw salt over my shoulder and the work of Satan when I listened to a psychic, but it was all just okey dokey to think that Pope John Paul was up in heaven singlehandedly keeping one kid in Iowa healthy? I mean, Jeezo Pete, call me crazy, but maybe he could be helping some poor kid in Africa who is dying of malnutrition instead of staving off the wheezies for Celia's grandson, who is basically a healthy, happy kid?
Patrice to the rescue. She asked whether we wanted raisins in the stuffin' at Thanksgiving this year. We all gather at her house. Of course, Jessie vetoed it immediately, she hates raisins. I commented that I kind of liked those raisins.
The stuffin' won't have raisins. I'd bet my mortgage on it. Spoiled rotten brat.
But, then...you know...other things happened that night to make me realize that there is nothing quite so wonderful as sister love. As we were climbing some stairs to get to the play house for our play, I almost lost my balance in my high heels. It was Jessie's arm that steadied me. And her arm that stayed around me as we climbed the stairs together.
We might argue like bandits, but when push comes to shove, my sister is going to steady me when I lose my balance.
My sister, Patrice loves show tunes. In the car on the way to the play, she had on her cd of ANNIE! By the time we got home that night, I was ready to scream if I had to hear about the sun coming up tomorrow or it being a hard knock life one more time. Celia needed to run to Walgreens because she had forgotten to pack her toothbrush so I offered to take her. We got in my car and I turned to her smiling broadly.
"How about if I turn on my cd of the soundtrack from OKLAHOMA!?" I asked. She paled. I had seen her looking out the window in Patrice's car looking like she didn't like hearing about betting yer bottom dollar about the sun coming up either.
Celia was torn, I could see it. She is the quietest, the most unassuming out of all of us. I punched in the cd player.
This came on:
We looked at each other and laughed.
"Oh, GOD...THANK YOU!" she shouted. I cranked it up and we grooved all the way to Walgreens, even adding some hand gestures that worked perfectly.
Celia may look like a quiet angel, but she has a rocker heart.
When my sisters left on Sunday, I was ready to say goodbye, but missing them already too. Patrice and I see each other at least once a week, but I only see Celia and Jessie on certain holidays or when we take a visit to see each other.
When I was a child, I shared a bedroom with Celia. She let me sleep with her in her bed when it thunderstormed. Patrice makes me strong coffee every single time I come over to visit and she hates coffee, never drinks it. It is just for me. Jessie and I are on polar ends of the spectrum when it comes to religion and politics but if someone was messing with her, I'd want to be there to kick their ass out of the park. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, my sisters and I all circled around her, trying to shield her with our love. When her hair fell out and she started wearing baseball caps everywhere, so did we. We didn't want her to feel like she was all alone. Because she wasn't. We were right there with her.
My sisters have a place in my heart that no one else does. There is this one place that is just for them, nobody else. When we sat around that restaurant table a few weeks ago, talking and laughing....well...we all leaned in towards each other with our body language. We belong to each other. Even when I want to punch Jessie in the kisser for being such a smug Catholic, there is this other part of me, a bigger part that knows that I would walk through fire to protect her. When she was battling cancer (and she is nearly five years free of it!), I asked her if there was anything I could do to help. She asked me to go buy a religious candle, light it, and pray for her.
I sighed. But, I did it. I went to a Mexican grocery and bought one of those tacky looking prayer candles...okay...I bought TWO of them. I lit them every single night and bowed my head and prayed even though I felt like I was doing it all wrong and didn't have the slightest idea who to pray to. I just did it. And I still light those candles every night. I think I have gone through about ten of them by now.
And Jessie would scoff at this, but I am superstitious. I have this crazy idea that my candles are keeping her safe from cancer. The thought of a life without any of my sisters almost makes me feel ill. They are mine. They are Republicans. They are not sure how to handle my strange self. But, I know in my heart that the feeling is mutual, that they love me every bit as much as I love them.
But, that doesn't mean that I didn't bitch and moan about them to Bing when I finally got home that night.....
And after Thanksgiving, I will ride home with Bing and Liv and roll my eyes and say, "Did you hear that idiotic thing that Jessie (or Patrice, or Celia) said? God, I can't believe that I have a family like this!"
And yes, they will go home from Thanksgiving dinner too and there will be comments about my way too liberal self.
But, I laugh hardest with my sisters and I know that if I fall...well...there will be three hands reaching out to catch me.
Jessie's husband, Dwayne, says that we all have the same get the fuck out of my way look when we are angry. "It's all in the chin," he says. "You all have those pointy witch chins anyway and when you get mad, the chin gets all jutty and quivery."
Patrice has almost black hair. Celia is a natural blond. None of us can figure this out as NO ONE in our family is blond, our Da had black hair and our Mother, red. But, Liv has blond hair too and her father is an American Indian. My hair used to be this mousy brown color; now it is mostly gray. Jessie has brown hair too, but it has these gorgeous natural red highlights in it that look like she pays hundreds of dollars at the salon every month. She doesn't.
Patrice and Celia have our Mother's dark blue eyes, Jessie, our Da's Paul Newman light blue. Me? Mine are this odd hazel, green, blue color and they change with my mood. If I am happy, they are more blue, if I am sick, they go all greenish and if I am sad, they turn into this muddy hazel color. Bing says it is the vampire in me.
Let me introduce you to my sisters:
Patrice is the oldest. She is in her late 50's, and is the shortest in a family of shorties. She is about 4'9. Her hair is long and thick, almost blue black and gorgeously thick. She looks about twenty years younger than she is. She is small wristed and dainty ankled like the rest of us, but she has cuuuurrrvvvees and really big boobs (or loodies, as we call them, for some odd reason.)She's all Annette Funicello. She is retired now, but managed a doctor's office for years and after she retired, her boss offered her huge bucks to come back. She didn't. She and her husband, Tom, are very wealthy and she spends her time now puttering in her garden, re-decorating her house, and being a staunch Republican.
Celia, is in her mid 50's and looks like a fragile Dusty Springfield. She is about 4'10 and teeny tiny. She probably weighs about 80 pounds soaking wet yet she walks for miles every day, worried that if she doesn't, she will suddenly turn into Mrs. Santa Claus. She has been a SAHM all of her life and now she is a SAHG (stay at home grandma..she babysits her grandkids.)Her husband is one of the kindest men I have ever met, Dan. They live in the small town in Iowa where we grew up and she scrapbooks. Celia is the sensitive one in our family. She is shy.
Jessie is in her early 40's. The accident. We tease her about this all of the time. I was nearly 10 when she was born. She is the most like our Mother, fiery and opinionated, stubborn and smart as hell. She was also spoiled rotten growing up, so she tends to be very self involved. She's a teacher and a pillar of the Catholic Church. She actually teaches religion (and math) in the high school in the small town that Celia lives in and she teaches several night classes in religion as well. She is a walking Catholic expert. She is so convinced that I am going to shoot straight to hell that she has begged me to let her make sure that I get extreme unction on my death bed in the hopes that somehow God will have mercy on my soul. She is a neat five feet even and married to Dwayne, a good ole boy and very laid back in the way that small town men often are.
When we all get together, it can be both very fun and entertaining and sort of bizarre. Patrice tries, in her motherly fashion to keep Jessie and I from arguing about religion or politics. We are on opposite ends. Debate with Jessie is interesting to me, though, because she actually knows her stuff. She knows the bible and how the Catholic church stands on every single thing in the world. If you want to know how the church feels about chewing gum, she not only knows, but can probably quote from the article. Our arguments are spirited and just short of menacing at times. One or both of us usually steps back and finally we agree to disagree. But we both know that we are right and that other sister is wrong.
Celia is by far the quietest of us all and the most peace loving. She will never utter a word to hurt anyone if she can help it. Patrice is the eldest, and therefore, our mother figure, she is by far the bossiest and tends to plan all activities when we are together. This time she planned a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant since we are all pasta pigs and then a trip to the playhouse to see a show that she knew would please Jessie because it is religious and me because it has some great quirky moments. Celia is so easy to please that we never worry about her.
Celia and Jessie stayed at Patrice's house for the visit. I do have a spare bedroom, but Patrice has two and her house is far more splendid than mine and the rooms have their own bathrooms and showers, so she wins hand down in the hotel category. Plus, at my house, we have all sorts of green things that bug my sisters from intense recycling to a showerhead that emits just enough water for a person to get clean and not one drop more. MUCH more fun to stay at Patrice's....
When they came by to pick me up for dinner, we all laughed. Because we had all somehow managed to dress in black. This happens so often that we just shake our heads. And true, to form, the following day when we all met for breakfast, we were all wearing pink.
At dinner, Celia and I ordered the angel pasta and meatballs while Patrice and Jessie went for the lasagna. The wine flowed. Much bread was dipped into olive oil and garlic. We all talked, sweetly at first like good sisters in Little Women and then we became bolder. Jessie chided me for not making her daughter go to mass when she stayed at my house last month. I told her that as far as I was concerned, she was 18 and that was that. I didn't stop her, did I?
"Well," Jessie said, swiping her bread through the oil and taking a generous bite, "It was also lifeline Sunday and she missed that too."
Lifeline Sunday?
Apparently, this is a day where good Catholics gather in little right to life groups and stand in a long line to show their support for the movement.
I chuckled. Told her that it was probably best that I hadn't even known that was in town or I might have locked her child in my basement to prevent her attending....
Patrice, sensing a sister brawl brewing, changed the subject. Did we know about Cousin Diana? That new haircut wasn't working....
Brawl averted.
I cleared my throat, told them that I wanted to share something. The sisters braced themselves. This could be anything from sharing that my daughter had decided to take fencing lessons (she has, but I didn't tell them about that) to me getting some sort of racy tatt or piercing. (I do have a tattoo but it was done when I was in my drunken twenties and I would give anything to get rid of it and I have let most of my piercings close up.) But, if Patrice is the bossy one, Celia is the quiet, sensitive one and Jessie is the religious one....I am considered to be the bold one. The one most likely to do something like decide to vacation at a nudist colony (with my saggy loodies? NEVER) or ask them if they want to share a bowl with me. They had trepidations.
I told them that Bing and I had recently bought a half hour phone call from a psychic. It's true. Bing was the one who set up, to my great surprise. She is sooo not inclined to do things like that. But, her Aunt recently died and her grief has been great and now she was having really odd dreams and so she decided to do this after researching this in true Bing fashion to find the psychic with the best record.
I won't even say how much it cost because it was way too much. And while I thought it was interesting and possibly true, I am not wholly convinced. What the hell is it with psychics that when a family member who has crossed decides to "come through" in these sessions, that they can NEVER figure out what their name is? This one said that someone was coming through, a father figure for me and that his name started with a J or a G. I said that yes, this was my father. And later, she said that a female entity was coming through and carrying a flower. Well, the first part of my Mother's name is a flower but why the hell couldn't she simply TELL me her name? Why is it that she could tell me that my Mother was warning me that I needed to get a flu shot since my health was so bad, but she couldn't say her name? I came away from the meeting feeling a little convinced (one piece of information that the psychic gave was a date that was dead on accurate) and a little skeptical (when my Mother "came through" she didn't seem to think it was important that she had disinherited me from her will because I was bi-sexual; it was never even vaguely touched upon.) And poor Bing. Her Aunt never did come through, although a grandmother whom she had never met did and a long dead cousin whom she barely knew did as well.
So, I had mixed feelings about it all and relayed that to my sisters. Patrice and Celia shared my skepticism but admitted that some things seemed eerily accurate. Jessie, however, flat out told me that this sort of shit (she said "stuff") was not only bogus but that it was the work of Beelzebub, plain and simple. She got a little smarty pants about it all, in my opinion so I did what I do best. I began mocking her in my Church Lady voice. ("OH, I don't know...do you think that possibly it could have been....let's see.....SATAN???!!")
As we went on to another subject, Patrice accidentally knocked over a salt shaker and I righted it and then threw a pinch of salt over my shoulder to keep the bad luck away. Jessie thought this hilarious and teased me about my silly superstitions.
Celia spoke about how she had said a novena to Pope John Paul to keep her grandson, who is prone to asthma, healthy this Autumn and guess what? The kid has not had even one minor attack! Jessie nodded in agreement, said that the novena seemed to be working.
I burst out laughing. So....it was SILLY to throw salt over my shoulder and the work of Satan when I listened to a psychic, but it was all just okey dokey to think that Pope John Paul was up in heaven singlehandedly keeping one kid in Iowa healthy? I mean, Jeezo Pete, call me crazy, but maybe he could be helping some poor kid in Africa who is dying of malnutrition instead of staving off the wheezies for Celia's grandson, who is basically a healthy, happy kid?
Patrice to the rescue. She asked whether we wanted raisins in the stuffin' at Thanksgiving this year. We all gather at her house. Of course, Jessie vetoed it immediately, she hates raisins. I commented that I kind of liked those raisins.
The stuffin' won't have raisins. I'd bet my mortgage on it. Spoiled rotten brat.
But, then...you know...other things happened that night to make me realize that there is nothing quite so wonderful as sister love. As we were climbing some stairs to get to the play house for our play, I almost lost my balance in my high heels. It was Jessie's arm that steadied me. And her arm that stayed around me as we climbed the stairs together.
We might argue like bandits, but when push comes to shove, my sister is going to steady me when I lose my balance.
My sister, Patrice loves show tunes. In the car on the way to the play, she had on her cd of ANNIE! By the time we got home that night, I was ready to scream if I had to hear about the sun coming up tomorrow or it being a hard knock life one more time. Celia needed to run to Walgreens because she had forgotten to pack her toothbrush so I offered to take her. We got in my car and I turned to her smiling broadly.
"How about if I turn on my cd of the soundtrack from OKLAHOMA!?" I asked. She paled. I had seen her looking out the window in Patrice's car looking like she didn't like hearing about betting yer bottom dollar about the sun coming up either.
Celia was torn, I could see it. She is the quietest, the most unassuming out of all of us. I punched in the cd player.
This came on:
We looked at each other and laughed.
"Oh, GOD...THANK YOU!" she shouted. I cranked it up and we grooved all the way to Walgreens, even adding some hand gestures that worked perfectly.
Celia may look like a quiet angel, but she has a rocker heart.
When my sisters left on Sunday, I was ready to say goodbye, but missing them already too. Patrice and I see each other at least once a week, but I only see Celia and Jessie on certain holidays or when we take a visit to see each other.
When I was a child, I shared a bedroom with Celia. She let me sleep with her in her bed when it thunderstormed. Patrice makes me strong coffee every single time I come over to visit and she hates coffee, never drinks it. It is just for me. Jessie and I are on polar ends of the spectrum when it comes to religion and politics but if someone was messing with her, I'd want to be there to kick their ass out of the park. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, my sisters and I all circled around her, trying to shield her with our love. When her hair fell out and she started wearing baseball caps everywhere, so did we. We didn't want her to feel like she was all alone. Because she wasn't. We were right there with her.
My sisters have a place in my heart that no one else does. There is this one place that is just for them, nobody else. When we sat around that restaurant table a few weeks ago, talking and laughing....well...we all leaned in towards each other with our body language. We belong to each other. Even when I want to punch Jessie in the kisser for being such a smug Catholic, there is this other part of me, a bigger part that knows that I would walk through fire to protect her. When she was battling cancer (and she is nearly five years free of it!), I asked her if there was anything I could do to help. She asked me to go buy a religious candle, light it, and pray for her.
I sighed. But, I did it. I went to a Mexican grocery and bought one of those tacky looking prayer candles...okay...I bought TWO of them. I lit them every single night and bowed my head and prayed even though I felt like I was doing it all wrong and didn't have the slightest idea who to pray to. I just did it. And I still light those candles every night. I think I have gone through about ten of them by now.
And Jessie would scoff at this, but I am superstitious. I have this crazy idea that my candles are keeping her safe from cancer. The thought of a life without any of my sisters almost makes me feel ill. They are mine. They are Republicans. They are not sure how to handle my strange self. But, I know in my heart that the feeling is mutual, that they love me every bit as much as I love them.
But, that doesn't mean that I didn't bitch and moan about them to Bing when I finally got home that night.....
And after Thanksgiving, I will ride home with Bing and Liv and roll my eyes and say, "Did you hear that idiotic thing that Jessie (or Patrice, or Celia) said? God, I can't believe that I have a family like this!"
And yes, they will go home from Thanksgiving dinner too and there will be comments about my way too liberal self.
But, I laugh hardest with my sisters and I know that if I fall...well...there will be three hands reaching out to catch me.
Snot
Liv and I were at her fencing class yesterday. Yes, I am allowing her to take lessons. She has wanted to do this since she was in kindergarten, but I simply could not let her do anything with a sword in her hand until I finally bit the bullet and let her sign up this year. And then I almost chickened out when her instructor announced at the first class that fencing was considered a combat sport.
A WHAT????!!
Well, boy howdy.
Anyway, it seems that my little girl is a natural. She is deft at weaving and bobbing and slipping in jabs. And she ADORES it, so I suppose I am staunchly standing behind her.
But out of the way of the sword. Of course.
She is the ONLY person in the class under the age of 13. This gives me pause but not her. Not one bit. She thinks is is FUN.
There are several teenagers in the class, young teenagers, a group of males who are 15 years old, come regularly in a pack, usually driven by two parents. They thought that Liv was a cute little squirt at first. Now, they have noticed that she is a fierce competitor and a good fencer, so they never volunteer to be her partner.
Liv has had problems with her long blond hair under her mask. She puts it back in a ponytail, but she gets flyaways, so I have been letting her use my hair gel.
My hair gel has a funny name. I got it from my new hairdresser. (My old one retired and recommended a friend of hers, a young Hispanic man called Juan, who speaks NO English. My adventures in haircutting with Juan will make for another blog post...a hysterically funny one too...)
The hair gel is designed to REALLY hold your hair. It is a product from Mexico.
It is called Snott Gorila Gel.
It helpfully advises on the jar that you SHOULD PLEASE NOT INGEST.
Anyway, Bing, Liv and I all really like it and it is dirt cheap. We call it snot for short. As in, "Who took the snot? When you use the snot, remember to put it back in my cabinet, please!" And, since Bing and I are comedians, we always helpfully add, "AND PLEASE DO NOT INGEST!" We crack each other up. Yes, we are that corny.
I had brought the jar with us to Liv's practice and she came running out after she had suited up and shouted out, "Mom, can you please put some snot in my hair?"
Immediate appalled looks from every other parent in the room.
I rummaged through my bag, searching. One of the boys came up to Liv and said, "Did you just ask to have SNOT put in your hair?"
Liv grinned. "Yeah," she answered. "My Mother buys this stuff from Mexico. It is Gorilla snot or something."
More horrified looks. God, wasn't that woman treading on thin ice bringing a LITTLE GIRL in for fencing class? And now, she makes it worse by actually buying animal snot to put in her child's hair. What's next? Bringing a beer to class for her treat?
I found the jar finally and we applied a dab to Liv's hair. (Because, really it is like wet cement, I swear...you need just a dot.)
Sighs of relief all around. Several boys came over to inspect the jar and they all wanted to try it, of course. Soon, everyone had taken a bit of Snott Gorrila Gel to try. And they loved it, of course.
As the instructor called the class to order, I called after them, "BUT PLEASE DON'T INGEST IT!"
Not one parent laughed. Although one boy curiously asked, "What does ingest mean?"
Nobody gets me except Bing.
She would have laughed, I just know it.
A WHAT????!!
Well, boy howdy.
Anyway, it seems that my little girl is a natural. She is deft at weaving and bobbing and slipping in jabs. And she ADORES it, so I suppose I am staunchly standing behind her.
But out of the way of the sword. Of course.
She is the ONLY person in the class under the age of 13. This gives me pause but not her. Not one bit. She thinks is is FUN.
There are several teenagers in the class, young teenagers, a group of males who are 15 years old, come regularly in a pack, usually driven by two parents. They thought that Liv was a cute little squirt at first. Now, they have noticed that she is a fierce competitor and a good fencer, so they never volunteer to be her partner.
Liv has had problems with her long blond hair under her mask. She puts it back in a ponytail, but she gets flyaways, so I have been letting her use my hair gel.
My hair gel has a funny name. I got it from my new hairdresser. (My old one retired and recommended a friend of hers, a young Hispanic man called Juan, who speaks NO English. My adventures in haircutting with Juan will make for another blog post...a hysterically funny one too...)
The hair gel is designed to REALLY hold your hair. It is a product from Mexico.
It is called Snott Gorila Gel.
It helpfully advises on the jar that you SHOULD PLEASE NOT INGEST.
Anyway, Bing, Liv and I all really like it and it is dirt cheap. We call it snot for short. As in, "Who took the snot? When you use the snot, remember to put it back in my cabinet, please!" And, since Bing and I are comedians, we always helpfully add, "AND PLEASE DO NOT INGEST!" We crack each other up. Yes, we are that corny.
I had brought the jar with us to Liv's practice and she came running out after she had suited up and shouted out, "Mom, can you please put some snot in my hair?"
Immediate appalled looks from every other parent in the room.
I rummaged through my bag, searching. One of the boys came up to Liv and said, "Did you just ask to have SNOT put in your hair?"
Liv grinned. "Yeah," she answered. "My Mother buys this stuff from Mexico. It is Gorilla snot or something."
More horrified looks. God, wasn't that woman treading on thin ice bringing a LITTLE GIRL in for fencing class? And now, she makes it worse by actually buying animal snot to put in her child's hair. What's next? Bringing a beer to class for her treat?
I found the jar finally and we applied a dab to Liv's hair. (Because, really it is like wet cement, I swear...you need just a dot.)
Sighs of relief all around. Several boys came over to inspect the jar and they all wanted to try it, of course. Soon, everyone had taken a bit of Snott Gorrila Gel to try. And they loved it, of course.
As the instructor called the class to order, I called after them, "BUT PLEASE DON'T INGEST IT!"
Not one parent laughed. Although one boy curiously asked, "What does ingest mean?"
Nobody gets me except Bing.
She would have laughed, I just know it.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
I thought of you when I heard that song.....
I can't remember her name.
That probably seems heartless to you. But, the truth is that when I met her I was more into having experiences and less into remembering the people's names associated with them.
It was in New York City, 1989.
I was at my first real professional conference. I was 31 years old and just beginning to actually make some real money. For so many years, I had been accustomed to living on a shoestring budget. Used to living in apartments with holes in the kitchen floor so deep that I could peer into the kitchen of the person living below me. Eating at the hospital cafeteria because I knew the cashier and she would charge me a dollar or two for every meal, after carefully looking around to make sure that no big wigs were about.
To finally have a disposable income felt very strange to me. And to actually be going to a professional conference and having my airfare and room and board paid for! Good hell. I thought I was in heaven.
I had never been to New York before.
I fell in love as we all do when visiting "the big ambrosia" as my new found friend, Richie, put it. I had met Richie on the airplane. He sat next to me, an extremely tall man at 6'4 and very skinny and gangly. A British accent. He had stopped in Nebraska to meet with a clinic that dealt primarily with Asperger's Syndrome patients prior to going to the seminar in New York. He jokingly told me on the plane that he had made the decision after staying in Nebraska that it was an armpit and he had no desire to live there. I had spent the remainder of the flight mocking him in a contrived British accent, scolding him for being a British snob and a large footed giant, who thought he was upper crust compared to us peasants on the prairie.
We liked each other right from the start.
Richie was a beautiful man in the way that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are classically beautiful. He looked a lot like Rupert Friend. He was fey and hysterically funny and his accent was right off of Brideshead Revisited. People kept turning around to stare at him. He was used to it, I could see that. He had the slow, deep dimpled smile that he had used to his advantage over and over with splendid results. I could see that right from the get go.
And, as I said, we got on like wild fire. He was actually presenting at the conference, a paper that he had recently had published on Asperger's and he somehow talked me into helping him set up before his presentation. Neither one of us had ever been to New York City before and we vowed to escape the dreary conference for at least one night of dancing.
Our chance came the second night of the conference. We were offered the opportunity to watch several presentations of our peers and obediently signed up for them, then took one walk around the booths and cut back out the doors like we were high school students sneaking out of gym class. We had agreed that we would both change into our racier nightlife clothes and he would pick me up at my door.
When he knocked jauntily at my door and I peeked through the peephole, I was shocked. He looked so, so, so....rock star. He had on black leather pants and a suave swashbuckling pirate top with black boots and he had moused up his hair in a crazy tousled manner that made him look like he had just stepped off the cover of Vogue.
He took one look at me and said, "Can't we do better than this, milkmaid?"
Milkmaid was his sly nickname for me after he discovered that I was actually a farmer's daughter.
I looked down at my jeans and tee shirt. I shrugged. He sighed and went through my suitcase, pronounced everything tacky and then went back to his own room and came back with a soft silky man's blue shirt. When I put it on, it went down to my knees. As I said, he was about 6'4. I was barely five feet. He then made me take off my ballet slippers and put on the only high heeled shoes I had brought, a pair of plain black ones. He looked at me and sighed again.
"Well," he said, "Since we can't wow them with your clothes, we will have to keep their eyes on your face. Where is your makeup bag?"
A makeup bag?
My cosmetics were a tube of red lipstick, some Bonne Bell blush and mascara.
He was aghast. He sent me down to the gift shop to pick up some dark eyeliner in blue and black and gold. I could only procure blue and black and he said he would make do.
When he finished making me up, I expected to look in the mirror and see a street walker. Instead, I saw a...a....mysterious looking siren. I looked well...I looked...okay...pretty good. Almost glamorous. Well, not almost, maybe halfway glamorous. At any rate. I was pleased. So was he. He pulled a gold and blue tie out of his back pocket and helped me tie it over my shirt and we were off.
He led me to a nearby subway and told me his plan. We were going to go to a bar that he had read about in The New Yorker in his room. I swallowed once nervously.
When we got to our stop, he led me down several blocks to a building where a beat was going so hard that I could actually feel it on the pavement under my feet. There was a line of hopefuls waiting behind a velvet rope. We both groaned. This was not going to be easy. The line was long.
Suddenly, an older, Prince-like black man came up and looped his arm through Richie's. Richie immediately shone his dimples at him. The man asked him if he wanted to get inside the place right away. Richie said yes.
"Wellll," the man drawled prettily. "I adore your accent, boy. Tell you what, if you dance with me twice and let me kiss you once, I will get you in."
Richie's smile widened to show his pearly teeth. He pointed at me. Asked if his friend could come too. The older man looked at me as if Richie were asking to take a pet rat in the building but he rolled his eyes and agreed, if Richie would kiss him twice. Richie said of course. So, after the older man handed the bouncer a sheaf of bills, we were allowed in. Richie leaned down to scream in my ear (it was deafening in there) that he would find me by the ladies room in an hour to check back. I nodded and he let himself be swooped away by the aging Prince.
I decided to find the bar and immediately ordered a gin and tonic. Gulped it down. I was pleased to be asked to dance almost immediately and after that, it was easy peasy. I danced with both men and women, black and white, Hispanic, one man in Arab garb. I stopped to take a break now and then, breathless. This bar was like the city it lived in, electric and rambunctious. Teeming with life and a pulse that seemed stuck on 98. I met Richie dutifully at our appointed hour and he was there waiting for me.
"Are you having fun?" he asked. He had what looked to be lipstick smeared all over his mouth. I asked him if he had been kissing girls. No, he laughed. He had been kissing boys with lipstick. So much more fun. Did I need to leave or did I want to stay? I could tell that he badly wanted to stay. I agreed to stay for another hour and then meet back here. He leaned down to shout in my ear that he felt so at home here, wanted to dance forever. I smiled.
I ambled back to the bar and remarkably, found an empty bar stool. I nabbed it and ordered another gin and tonic. A man sitting next to me in a creamy suit with a sharp brown tie and suspenders told me that I should try a cosmopolitan. I looked at him more closely and realized that it was not a man, but a woman. I asked what was in a cosmopolitan. She told me that the only cosmopolitan that was good was made with something called "Stoli ohranj vodka" and freshly squeezed orange juice and other juices. She said that this bar made them exactly that way and motioned to the bar tender to make us two. The drinks came back and I reached to pay for mine, but she shook her head and pulled a wallet out of her jacket pocket and bought them.
"Okay," she said. "Take a sip." She watched me, waiting. It was delicious, I told her. She smiled. Shrugged. "Told ya," she said. We tried to talk while we drank, but it was nearly impossible. We tried though, and kept laughing as we misheard each other over and over. She quickly cocked her head as a new song came on and then grabbed my hand.
"You have to dance with me," she said, "It's MICHAEL!"
The song was Beat It. We danced to it and then C'mon, Eileen came on and we danced around to that as well. She was an able dancer, not great, not terrible. I tried to keep up. We had agreed to take a breather when another song came on and she let out a yelp. "This is my all time favorite song!" she told me. "WE HAVE TO DANCE TO IT!"
I began trying to move to it. It was another Michael Jackson song, but not nearly as easy to dance to as Beat It. We improvised, I let her hold my hand over my head as I twirled like a ballerina, trying not to teeter on my heels. She dipped me. And then, oddly, we were both in perfect sync. We began moving together. The music slid into my blood stream and took hold. I began, for the first time ever, to feel a song in my feet, in my arms, in my heart, in my nose, my eyes, my mouth. We swirled and tangoed, our bodies touching, staying locked together and then pulling apart. It was incredible.
Except for one thing. When we had been locked together,when she had been behind me, swaying close with me, her arms around my waist, I had felt something. A hardness. A solidity.
A penis. I let it go until the song ended and we were standing close together, smiling. She leaned down and I let her kiss me softly and then yes....felt it again. I cautiously backed away, just a little. I gave her a curious look. She threw her head back and laughed.
"Um, what is THAT?" I asked.
"My dick," she answered, I thought, pretty carelessly.
I blinked. Started to sputter something about how I thought she was a woman, etc.
She smiled, very, very kindly. She was going to help this hayseed.
"I have my strap-on in place," she said. "I wear it most of the time."
I tried to shrug, to act as if I encountered women with strap ons regularly. I didn't. She was my first.
I checked my watch and realized that I was a few minutes late checking back with Richie, told her that and we walked to the bathroom. Richie was even later than I was and so she and I took the opportunity to kiss a little. Finally, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Richie. He had a man who was even taller than he was in tow, a strapping Jethro of a man, a lumberjack in New York City. Richie told me that he and the man were going to stop at another bar and then head home, did I want to come along? It was a gay bar for men, he warned me. I shook my head no. Richie offered to pay for a cab ride home for me. The woman whose name I can't recall stepped in and said that she would be glad to see me home, on the subway, though. She said that she lived in Brooklyn and it wasn't far out of her way. Richie looked at me questioning and I nodded my assent.
I did things like that when I was in my thirties. Trusted so easily. But, truly, I sensed that she was trustworthy, although I wasn't all that attracted to her. I hoped that she didn't expect us to sleep together. Richie and his date left, their arms slung around each other and I turned back to the woman. Let's call her Bette because, honestly, she deserves a name. She was a nice woman, one of the good ones.
She asked if I wanted another drink and I said maybe one more, but I wanted to buy. She shook her head. Said that when she had the strap-on on, she bought the drinks. She bought two more cosmopolitans and we drank them, standing close together. She began kissing my neck and nibbling on it, I inhaled her smell. It was nice. Something earthy and misty, not male, not female. Finally, she pulled away from me and said she would see me home if I was ready. I said okay and we walked out to the street.
We walked, holding hands to the subway. She stopped suddenly and turned me towards her, making direct eye contact.
"I need to tell you something," she said. "I need to tell you that nothing is going to happen with us tonight. I have a girlfriend. She is home visiting her family in Washington, DC this week and well, I can't cheat on her. I can't do it. I shouldn't even have done anything with you. It just sort of happened, but I need to stop it. Now. She called me around 9 tonight and I told her that I was going to go to bed early tonight, but I came here instead and although I'm really glad that I met you, I should have really kept my word to her. So. Just so you know." She took a deep breath and waited for my response.
It was relief. I told her that I understood completely. That I was only here for two more days and then I would be heading back home and well, I was tired and had a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. I thought she was fantastic and I had enjoyed myself a lot, but that I wasn't looking to laid tonight either. She and I smiled at each other, a good decision taken care of now. We started walking again and she put her arm around me and hugged me, leaned down to whisper in my ear that she DID think I was attractive, though, she wanted me to know that.
I said "ditto."
She burst out laughing again.
"Where are you from?" she asked. "You sound so...so..freaking midwestern."
I told her that I was actually a farm girl from Iowa. This made her laugh again.
"Aw...fuck," she said, smiling broadly. "I always wanted to fuck a farm girl from Iowa. Seriously."
I shrugged. Giggled in a way that sort of appalled me. It sounded so cutesy. So...yes...so hayseedy.
We got on the subway and settled in. We sat close together, knees touching, leaning in close to talk seriously. I found out that she worked at a video store but hoped it wouldn't be forever. What she really wanted to do was be on a crew that made videos. I told her about the convention that I was in town for and she shook her head.
"NO!" she said. "I have this farm girl image in my head and I seriously don't want to shift to thinking of you in a white coat. Please. Tell me that you work hard on your farm....."
"I work hard on my farm," I told her, deadpan.
She leaned back and rested her head on the back of our seat. "Better," she said and leaned down to kiss my cheek.
I looked around me. The subway was crowded and it was nearly two in the morning. Back home, the streets would be deserted and everyone fast asleep under the prairie sky. Not here, though, I guessed. Never here. And quite honestly, if we had been back home, there would have been astonished stares at two women kissing and snuggling together on a seat. I liked this better. Much better. But, hey, the prairie was my home.
When we got to my stop, Bette offered to get out with me and walk me to my hotel room door. I said no, that I was fine. She admitted that it was a spanking clean neighborhood and she was sure I would be fine and it was late and she did have to be at work at noon. I told her that I actually had to be up at 7 to help with a presentation at 8. She made a face.
"Too fucking early," she said. I agreed. She gave me a quick kiss as the doors opened. I thanked her for my drinks and a wonderful time. She smiled and as the doors closed, she bowed gracefully and said it had been her pleasure. I believed her.
The next morning, I was awakened by a rude phone call at 6:30 from Richie.
"Just wanted to make sure you were awake and ready to help me," he said, much too cheerily and much too alertly.
I groaned a little and said that I would meet him at the conference room door in an hour. I swung my legs to get out of bed and for the first time felt my punishment for dancing for hours in high heels. I ached all over. It would be the beginning of rude discoveries just like this for me. The beginning of my journey with rheumatoid arthritis, with pain and with, well, aging. I was 31, though, and the memories of my twenties were still close ones. It would take until my forties before I really accepted my limitations.
I met Richie as planned and snickered when he pulled away his black turtleneck to show me his hickeys. Called him a giant footed slut. We finished up the conference but didn't slip away again, instead we went along with docile groups to check out museums where I stood holding back tears as we viewed Van Gogh's The Starry Night and Irises. Richie coaxed me into the Avant-Garde section but the works there didn't move me much and I ended up back in the room with Vincent's works and cried into one of my sleeves a little.
I fell in love with New York just like everyone does. But, mostly in the way that those of us from the midwest or the south probably do. It is like seeing something so different from your daily life, so pulsing with movement and joy and knowing that even though you have joy in your life, it is a quieter joy, a smaller package. Nothing like the brawling sweep of New York joy. It is something to be treasured. I did treasure it, I still treasure it whenever I go back. One day I will take Liv to New York city.
Richie and I have stayed in sloppy touch over the years. We send Christmas cards. The last time I saw him in person was in Charleston when Liv was a toddler. I had gone with a friend to a conference on Autism and he was there, with his lover of several years. Richie is now Richard and he and his partner live in England. Richard teaches at Cambridge and his lover owns an old fashioned millinery. Richard is considered an expert on adults with Asperger's syndrome. He was still a pretty man when I saw him, but an aging pretty man. His dimples were still intact, but he was getting a bit jowly. I showed him photos of Liv and he showed me photos of their cat.
I never saw "Bette" again, but I surely wish her only good things in her life. She was a good person, a great kisser, an okay dancer and a helluva lot of fun. Every time, I hear this song, I think of her and I close my eyes, savoring the end of the song where Michael goes off on a scatty tangent, his voice joyful and slippery.
Reaching out to touch a stranger
Electric eyes are everywhere
See that girl, she knows I'm watching
She likes the way I stare
If they say why, why
Da da da da
Da da da da
I loved dancing with you. I hope you are well and happy.
That probably seems heartless to you. But, the truth is that when I met her I was more into having experiences and less into remembering the people's names associated with them.
It was in New York City, 1989.
I was at my first real professional conference. I was 31 years old and just beginning to actually make some real money. For so many years, I had been accustomed to living on a shoestring budget. Used to living in apartments with holes in the kitchen floor so deep that I could peer into the kitchen of the person living below me. Eating at the hospital cafeteria because I knew the cashier and she would charge me a dollar or two for every meal, after carefully looking around to make sure that no big wigs were about.
To finally have a disposable income felt very strange to me. And to actually be going to a professional conference and having my airfare and room and board paid for! Good hell. I thought I was in heaven.
I had never been to New York before.
I fell in love as we all do when visiting "the big ambrosia" as my new found friend, Richie, put it. I had met Richie on the airplane. He sat next to me, an extremely tall man at 6'4 and very skinny and gangly. A British accent. He had stopped in Nebraska to meet with a clinic that dealt primarily with Asperger's Syndrome patients prior to going to the seminar in New York. He jokingly told me on the plane that he had made the decision after staying in Nebraska that it was an armpit and he had no desire to live there. I had spent the remainder of the flight mocking him in a contrived British accent, scolding him for being a British snob and a large footed giant, who thought he was upper crust compared to us peasants on the prairie.
We liked each other right from the start.
Richie was a beautiful man in the way that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom are classically beautiful. He looked a lot like Rupert Friend. He was fey and hysterically funny and his accent was right off of Brideshead Revisited. People kept turning around to stare at him. He was used to it, I could see that. He had the slow, deep dimpled smile that he had used to his advantage over and over with splendid results. I could see that right from the get go.
And, as I said, we got on like wild fire. He was actually presenting at the conference, a paper that he had recently had published on Asperger's and he somehow talked me into helping him set up before his presentation. Neither one of us had ever been to New York City before and we vowed to escape the dreary conference for at least one night of dancing.
Our chance came the second night of the conference. We were offered the opportunity to watch several presentations of our peers and obediently signed up for them, then took one walk around the booths and cut back out the doors like we were high school students sneaking out of gym class. We had agreed that we would both change into our racier nightlife clothes and he would pick me up at my door.
When he knocked jauntily at my door and I peeked through the peephole, I was shocked. He looked so, so, so....rock star. He had on black leather pants and a suave swashbuckling pirate top with black boots and he had moused up his hair in a crazy tousled manner that made him look like he had just stepped off the cover of Vogue.
He took one look at me and said, "Can't we do better than this, milkmaid?"
Milkmaid was his sly nickname for me after he discovered that I was actually a farmer's daughter.
I looked down at my jeans and tee shirt. I shrugged. He sighed and went through my suitcase, pronounced everything tacky and then went back to his own room and came back with a soft silky man's blue shirt. When I put it on, it went down to my knees. As I said, he was about 6'4. I was barely five feet. He then made me take off my ballet slippers and put on the only high heeled shoes I had brought, a pair of plain black ones. He looked at me and sighed again.
"Well," he said, "Since we can't wow them with your clothes, we will have to keep their eyes on your face. Where is your makeup bag?"
A makeup bag?
My cosmetics were a tube of red lipstick, some Bonne Bell blush and mascara.
He was aghast. He sent me down to the gift shop to pick up some dark eyeliner in blue and black and gold. I could only procure blue and black and he said he would make do.
When he finished making me up, I expected to look in the mirror and see a street walker. Instead, I saw a...a....mysterious looking siren. I looked well...I looked...okay...pretty good. Almost glamorous. Well, not almost, maybe halfway glamorous. At any rate. I was pleased. So was he. He pulled a gold and blue tie out of his back pocket and helped me tie it over my shirt and we were off.
He led me to a nearby subway and told me his plan. We were going to go to a bar that he had read about in The New Yorker in his room. I swallowed once nervously.
When we got to our stop, he led me down several blocks to a building where a beat was going so hard that I could actually feel it on the pavement under my feet. There was a line of hopefuls waiting behind a velvet rope. We both groaned. This was not going to be easy. The line was long.
Suddenly, an older, Prince-like black man came up and looped his arm through Richie's. Richie immediately shone his dimples at him. The man asked him if he wanted to get inside the place right away. Richie said yes.
"Wellll," the man drawled prettily. "I adore your accent, boy. Tell you what, if you dance with me twice and let me kiss you once, I will get you in."
Richie's smile widened to show his pearly teeth. He pointed at me. Asked if his friend could come too. The older man looked at me as if Richie were asking to take a pet rat in the building but he rolled his eyes and agreed, if Richie would kiss him twice. Richie said of course. So, after the older man handed the bouncer a sheaf of bills, we were allowed in. Richie leaned down to scream in my ear (it was deafening in there) that he would find me by the ladies room in an hour to check back. I nodded and he let himself be swooped away by the aging Prince.
I decided to find the bar and immediately ordered a gin and tonic. Gulped it down. I was pleased to be asked to dance almost immediately and after that, it was easy peasy. I danced with both men and women, black and white, Hispanic, one man in Arab garb. I stopped to take a break now and then, breathless. This bar was like the city it lived in, electric and rambunctious. Teeming with life and a pulse that seemed stuck on 98. I met Richie dutifully at our appointed hour and he was there waiting for me.
"Are you having fun?" he asked. He had what looked to be lipstick smeared all over his mouth. I asked him if he had been kissing girls. No, he laughed. He had been kissing boys with lipstick. So much more fun. Did I need to leave or did I want to stay? I could tell that he badly wanted to stay. I agreed to stay for another hour and then meet back here. He leaned down to shout in my ear that he felt so at home here, wanted to dance forever. I smiled.
I ambled back to the bar and remarkably, found an empty bar stool. I nabbed it and ordered another gin and tonic. A man sitting next to me in a creamy suit with a sharp brown tie and suspenders told me that I should try a cosmopolitan. I looked at him more closely and realized that it was not a man, but a woman. I asked what was in a cosmopolitan. She told me that the only cosmopolitan that was good was made with something called "Stoli ohranj vodka" and freshly squeezed orange juice and other juices. She said that this bar made them exactly that way and motioned to the bar tender to make us two. The drinks came back and I reached to pay for mine, but she shook her head and pulled a wallet out of her jacket pocket and bought them.
"Okay," she said. "Take a sip." She watched me, waiting. It was delicious, I told her. She smiled. Shrugged. "Told ya," she said. We tried to talk while we drank, but it was nearly impossible. We tried though, and kept laughing as we misheard each other over and over. She quickly cocked her head as a new song came on and then grabbed my hand.
"You have to dance with me," she said, "It's MICHAEL!"
The song was Beat It. We danced to it and then C'mon, Eileen came on and we danced around to that as well. She was an able dancer, not great, not terrible. I tried to keep up. We had agreed to take a breather when another song came on and she let out a yelp. "This is my all time favorite song!" she told me. "WE HAVE TO DANCE TO IT!"
I began trying to move to it. It was another Michael Jackson song, but not nearly as easy to dance to as Beat It. We improvised, I let her hold my hand over my head as I twirled like a ballerina, trying not to teeter on my heels. She dipped me. And then, oddly, we were both in perfect sync. We began moving together. The music slid into my blood stream and took hold. I began, for the first time ever, to feel a song in my feet, in my arms, in my heart, in my nose, my eyes, my mouth. We swirled and tangoed, our bodies touching, staying locked together and then pulling apart. It was incredible.
Except for one thing. When we had been locked together,when she had been behind me, swaying close with me, her arms around my waist, I had felt something. A hardness. A solidity.
A penis. I let it go until the song ended and we were standing close together, smiling. She leaned down and I let her kiss me softly and then yes....felt it again. I cautiously backed away, just a little. I gave her a curious look. She threw her head back and laughed.
"Um, what is THAT?" I asked.
"My dick," she answered, I thought, pretty carelessly.
I blinked. Started to sputter something about how I thought she was a woman, etc.
She smiled, very, very kindly. She was going to help this hayseed.
"I have my strap-on in place," she said. "I wear it most of the time."
I tried to shrug, to act as if I encountered women with strap ons regularly. I didn't. She was my first.
I checked my watch and realized that I was a few minutes late checking back with Richie, told her that and we walked to the bathroom. Richie was even later than I was and so she and I took the opportunity to kiss a little. Finally, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Richie. He had a man who was even taller than he was in tow, a strapping Jethro of a man, a lumberjack in New York City. Richie told me that he and the man were going to stop at another bar and then head home, did I want to come along? It was a gay bar for men, he warned me. I shook my head no. Richie offered to pay for a cab ride home for me. The woman whose name I can't recall stepped in and said that she would be glad to see me home, on the subway, though. She said that she lived in Brooklyn and it wasn't far out of her way. Richie looked at me questioning and I nodded my assent.
I did things like that when I was in my thirties. Trusted so easily. But, truly, I sensed that she was trustworthy, although I wasn't all that attracted to her. I hoped that she didn't expect us to sleep together. Richie and his date left, their arms slung around each other and I turned back to the woman. Let's call her Bette because, honestly, she deserves a name. She was a nice woman, one of the good ones.
She asked if I wanted another drink and I said maybe one more, but I wanted to buy. She shook her head. Said that when she had the strap-on on, she bought the drinks. She bought two more cosmopolitans and we drank them, standing close together. She began kissing my neck and nibbling on it, I inhaled her smell. It was nice. Something earthy and misty, not male, not female. Finally, she pulled away from me and said she would see me home if I was ready. I said okay and we walked out to the street.
We walked, holding hands to the subway. She stopped suddenly and turned me towards her, making direct eye contact.
"I need to tell you something," she said. "I need to tell you that nothing is going to happen with us tonight. I have a girlfriend. She is home visiting her family in Washington, DC this week and well, I can't cheat on her. I can't do it. I shouldn't even have done anything with you. It just sort of happened, but I need to stop it. Now. She called me around 9 tonight and I told her that I was going to go to bed early tonight, but I came here instead and although I'm really glad that I met you, I should have really kept my word to her. So. Just so you know." She took a deep breath and waited for my response.
It was relief. I told her that I understood completely. That I was only here for two more days and then I would be heading back home and well, I was tired and had a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. I thought she was fantastic and I had enjoyed myself a lot, but that I wasn't looking to laid tonight either. She and I smiled at each other, a good decision taken care of now. We started walking again and she put her arm around me and hugged me, leaned down to whisper in my ear that she DID think I was attractive, though, she wanted me to know that.
I said "ditto."
She burst out laughing again.
"Where are you from?" she asked. "You sound so...so..freaking midwestern."
I told her that I was actually a farm girl from Iowa. This made her laugh again.
"Aw...fuck," she said, smiling broadly. "I always wanted to fuck a farm girl from Iowa. Seriously."
I shrugged. Giggled in a way that sort of appalled me. It sounded so cutesy. So...yes...so hayseedy.
We got on the subway and settled in. We sat close together, knees touching, leaning in close to talk seriously. I found out that she worked at a video store but hoped it wouldn't be forever. What she really wanted to do was be on a crew that made videos. I told her about the convention that I was in town for and she shook her head.
"NO!" she said. "I have this farm girl image in my head and I seriously don't want to shift to thinking of you in a white coat. Please. Tell me that you work hard on your farm....."
"I work hard on my farm," I told her, deadpan.
She leaned back and rested her head on the back of our seat. "Better," she said and leaned down to kiss my cheek.
I looked around me. The subway was crowded and it was nearly two in the morning. Back home, the streets would be deserted and everyone fast asleep under the prairie sky. Not here, though, I guessed. Never here. And quite honestly, if we had been back home, there would have been astonished stares at two women kissing and snuggling together on a seat. I liked this better. Much better. But, hey, the prairie was my home.
When we got to my stop, Bette offered to get out with me and walk me to my hotel room door. I said no, that I was fine. She admitted that it was a spanking clean neighborhood and she was sure I would be fine and it was late and she did have to be at work at noon. I told her that I actually had to be up at 7 to help with a presentation at 8. She made a face.
"Too fucking early," she said. I agreed. She gave me a quick kiss as the doors opened. I thanked her for my drinks and a wonderful time. She smiled and as the doors closed, she bowed gracefully and said it had been her pleasure. I believed her.
The next morning, I was awakened by a rude phone call at 6:30 from Richie.
"Just wanted to make sure you were awake and ready to help me," he said, much too cheerily and much too alertly.
I groaned a little and said that I would meet him at the conference room door in an hour. I swung my legs to get out of bed and for the first time felt my punishment for dancing for hours in high heels. I ached all over. It would be the beginning of rude discoveries just like this for me. The beginning of my journey with rheumatoid arthritis, with pain and with, well, aging. I was 31, though, and the memories of my twenties were still close ones. It would take until my forties before I really accepted my limitations.
I met Richie as planned and snickered when he pulled away his black turtleneck to show me his hickeys. Called him a giant footed slut. We finished up the conference but didn't slip away again, instead we went along with docile groups to check out museums where I stood holding back tears as we viewed Van Gogh's The Starry Night and Irises. Richie coaxed me into the Avant-Garde section but the works there didn't move me much and I ended up back in the room with Vincent's works and cried into one of my sleeves a little.
I fell in love with New York just like everyone does. But, mostly in the way that those of us from the midwest or the south probably do. It is like seeing something so different from your daily life, so pulsing with movement and joy and knowing that even though you have joy in your life, it is a quieter joy, a smaller package. Nothing like the brawling sweep of New York joy. It is something to be treasured. I did treasure it, I still treasure it whenever I go back. One day I will take Liv to New York city.
Richie and I have stayed in sloppy touch over the years. We send Christmas cards. The last time I saw him in person was in Charleston when Liv was a toddler. I had gone with a friend to a conference on Autism and he was there, with his lover of several years. Richie is now Richard and he and his partner live in England. Richard teaches at Cambridge and his lover owns an old fashioned millinery. Richard is considered an expert on adults with Asperger's syndrome. He was still a pretty man when I saw him, but an aging pretty man. His dimples were still intact, but he was getting a bit jowly. I showed him photos of Liv and he showed me photos of their cat.
I never saw "Bette" again, but I surely wish her only good things in her life. She was a good person, a great kisser, an okay dancer and a helluva lot of fun. Every time, I hear this song, I think of her and I close my eyes, savoring the end of the song where Michael goes off on a scatty tangent, his voice joyful and slippery.
Reaching out to touch a stranger
Electric eyes are everywhere
See that girl, she knows I'm watching
She likes the way I stare
If they say why, why
Da da da da
Da da da da
I loved dancing with you. I hope you are well and happy.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Some days are just like that
So, I went to a benefit last night. It was a cold, rainy night and since the event was held downtown, I decided to just go from my workplace and meet Bing there. I got all dressed up in my office, putting makeup on at the employee bathroom sink, where the light makes us all look like Cloris Leachman in Young Frankenstein.
But, I decided to make the best of it. I made it to the event right at the end of cocktails and right before dinner. Bing was waiting, trying not to look impatient. I did my usualstumbling sweeping into the room. Procured wine, found our table. The guest artist was an old friend of Bing's and mine, so we sat at the VIP table with her. People kept coming over to ask her for a photo, an autograph, etc.
Bing sat on my left, a youngish man sat on my right. I introduced myself and he did the same. We discovered that we had actually spoken on the phone a couple of times as he is a local reporter who had done a story for the newspaper and he had called me as part of his research once.
"Wow," he exclaimed. "You sounded so much younger than you are."
Well, now.
Thank you? Fuck you?
I said neither, just glassily smiled at him and pointedly ignored him for the rest of the evening.
Because I am a vain old bat.
But, I decided to make the best of it. I made it to the event right at the end of cocktails and right before dinner. Bing was waiting, trying not to look impatient. I did my usual
Bing sat on my left, a youngish man sat on my right. I introduced myself and he did the same. We discovered that we had actually spoken on the phone a couple of times as he is a local reporter who had done a story for the newspaper and he had called me as part of his research once.
"Wow," he exclaimed. "You sounded so much younger than you are."
Well, now.
Thank you? Fuck you?
I said neither, just glassily smiled at him and pointedly ignored him for the rest of the evening.
Because I am a vain old bat.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
"Terence, this is stupid stuff...."
God, I love A E Housman. I was in a poetry mood last night, but it couldn't be just any poetry. I wanted something substantial, something to sink my teeth into.
I found my copy of A E Housman's A Shropshire Lad.
It was just the ticket.
I lay in my bed, on my side, my torso cradling my book. And read. And read. By the time I arrived at LXll, Terence, this is stupid stuff..., I was totally immersed. It would take a thunderstorm or a fire to force my eyes to leave the page. Or Liv.
Liv came in all cranky and tousle haired from studying, working on a paper about Samuel de Champlain. I glanced up at her, asked her if she was coming in to say goodnight.
"I'm coming in to warm up my toes in your toasty bed," she said.
I opened the covers and she jumped in. Of course, Socks was on her heels, sitting politely on the floor rug, smiling hopefully up at me. I rolled my eyes and patted the bed.
"Why thank you, alpha woman," I could hear him say in my head. "Don't mind if I do!"
Liv asked what I was reading and I showed her the cover. She nestled down into the covers. "Read me some?" she asked, prettily.
I did.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair.
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried halfway home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad,
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heighho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet.
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
I stopped. Asked her what she thought. Her brow furrowed for a while and then she came up with her review.
"I think it is about a guy who goes out and drinks too much beer, trying to forget his problems. He maybe got crazy with the ladies a little bit. And then he wakes up and his clothes are all icky and wet and he sees that the world that seemed so pretty and bright is just the same old world, so he wants to go out and drink some beer."
I laughed. Because, wow...I have one smart girl, don't I?
And um...crazy with the ladies?!!!
Yes, I told her, she hit the nail on the head.
She grinned. "That was a funny line about him laying down in lovely muck, too."
I agreed. I told her that I liked the whole poem but there was not time to read it to her and she needed to get into bed. I walked her and Socks to Liv's bedroom and tucked them in, careful to make sure that her toes were covered. It is cold at night. Socks curled up next to her, his cold nose finding her armpit.
"You take care of Livvy, Socks," I told him. He gave me his Ernest Borgnine look, the one that says, "I am one bad ass dog. She is safe with me." I kissed Liv good night and gave him a pat.
I got back into my bed and re-read the poem. Oh, my. It was so very delicious. And Liv was right about the lovely muck, it was perfect. Not quite as perfect as "I was I, my things were wet", but close enough.
I had done my share of laying down in lovely muck, leaving my necktie God knows where and waking up to face a world that was exactly the same as when I left it.
Those days are long gone, but I still remember them with perfect clarity. Besides, who can resist reading anything that starts out "Terence, this is stupid stuff...?
And A E Housman rocks the house.
I found my copy of A E Housman's A Shropshire Lad.
It was just the ticket.
I lay in my bed, on my side, my torso cradling my book. And read. And read. By the time I arrived at LXll, Terence, this is stupid stuff..., I was totally immersed. It would take a thunderstorm or a fire to force my eyes to leave the page. Or Liv.
Liv came in all cranky and tousle haired from studying, working on a paper about Samuel de Champlain. I glanced up at her, asked her if she was coming in to say goodnight.
"I'm coming in to warm up my toes in your toasty bed," she said.
I opened the covers and she jumped in. Of course, Socks was on her heels, sitting politely on the floor rug, smiling hopefully up at me. I rolled my eyes and patted the bed.
"Why thank you, alpha woman," I could hear him say in my head. "Don't mind if I do!"
Liv asked what I was reading and I showed her the cover. She nestled down into the covers. "Read me some?" she asked, prettily.
I did.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair.
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried halfway home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad,
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heighho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet.
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
I stopped. Asked her what she thought. Her brow furrowed for a while and then she came up with her review.
"I think it is about a guy who goes out and drinks too much beer, trying to forget his problems. He maybe got crazy with the ladies a little bit. And then he wakes up and his clothes are all icky and wet and he sees that the world that seemed so pretty and bright is just the same old world, so he wants to go out and drink some beer."
I laughed. Because, wow...I have one smart girl, don't I?
And um...crazy with the ladies?!!!
Yes, I told her, she hit the nail on the head.
She grinned. "That was a funny line about him laying down in lovely muck, too."
I agreed. I told her that I liked the whole poem but there was not time to read it to her and she needed to get into bed. I walked her and Socks to Liv's bedroom and tucked them in, careful to make sure that her toes were covered. It is cold at night. Socks curled up next to her, his cold nose finding her armpit.
"You take care of Livvy, Socks," I told him. He gave me his Ernest Borgnine look, the one that says, "I am one bad ass dog. She is safe with me." I kissed Liv good night and gave him a pat.
I got back into my bed and re-read the poem. Oh, my. It was so very delicious. And Liv was right about the lovely muck, it was perfect. Not quite as perfect as "I was I, my things were wet", but close enough.
I had done my share of laying down in lovely muck, leaving my necktie God knows where and waking up to face a world that was exactly the same as when I left it.
Those days are long gone, but I still remember them with perfect clarity. Besides, who can resist reading anything that starts out "Terence, this is stupid stuff...?
And A E Housman rocks the house.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
My Jane Days
I get them from time to time.
Moods.
Bing calls them "the weepies."
But, I don't really weep all that much. Mostly....something just comes over me, something deep and beckoning, a weird hatchling of ideas, regrets, dreams, hopes, aching and yearning.
We Irish are excellent yearners.
I think of these times as my Jane days.
It starts slowly and then builds. I begin noticing things around me, how the light plays on leaves, the sounds of a radiator gurgling. Rain pattering and sluicing dreamily down windowpanes. I look at myself in mirrors and reach up to touch my face, noting freckles and softness, the way that the light plays on the left side, darkening, muting the right side.
An apple becomes something to ponder. The soft greens and pinks of apple skin that invite you to take a bite and then when one does, when one gives in, there is this satisfying c r u n c h and then the sweet tang of apple. A thin stream of apple juice runs down on my hand and I lick it with my tongue, smelling apples and thinking about riding trains and the way words look in books.
I go for long walks and something inside of me begins to build, to hurt a little in a pleasing way. My throat catches when I am on the phone for no good reason. I am suddenly completely caught up in how pretty my pocketbook is, with it's warm brown leather and a bright red cardinal stitched jauntily next to the snap.
I crave Jane Austen. I pick up one of her books, either Sense and Sensibility or my all time favorite, Pride and Prejudice.
I dive in. Sometimes with one of those crisp apples in hand, other times with nothing, just my finger twisting in my hair or cupping my chin, my pinky finger running over my mouth from time to time.
Jane enchants me with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Her writing makes me shake my head. How the hell does she DO that?
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
"I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."
"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects."
I am suddenly not here anymore at all, but somewhere else, an English countryside with a stone mansion, a brook with a bridge over it, the tapping of horse hooves slap dashing across it.
Every once in awhile, I come up for air, come up to face leaks in the plumbing that must be attended to, a bed that requires making. A car that must be driven to work.
And I manage to be there for Liv. But, only for Liv. Everyone else sort of slides into the fog in the back of my mind. I say "Pardon me?" a lot.
A psychic once told me that one of my most beloved lives had taken place in the early 19th century in the Scottish countryside and some days, I can almost believe that.
Because I yearn for it without without really understanding what exactly I want.
I think how much I would enjoy writing with a pen that required an ink bottle. How satisfying it would be to feel the scratching of the pen on paper. I want to wear a long flowing empire waisted dress, a blue one or maybe something sort of red. My hair up in a braid on the back of my neck, fastened with ornately jeweled pins.
No makeup. I want to pinch my cheeks to redden them, maybe use a bit of pomegranate to stain my lips, use a blackened stick match to make my eyebrows look sleek.
I want to take a long walk and feel my dress swooping around a bit around my legs.
I tell this to Bing and she snorts.
"I have two words for you, honey," she says. "Insulin and methatrexate."
I sigh. She's right. People like me would never have made it to true adulthood and frankly, I would have died young.
But, it wasn't as if people lived long lives back then...
I tell her this. She gently rolls her eyes. Tries again to pull me down to reality.
"Well, you would have to be one of the wealthier gentry because you would not much like to be a poor farm girl, honey. And your free spirited personality really wouldn't fly there. Imagine how it would go over if you encouraged both male and female suitors.....No. That wouldn't fly. You would have to be courted by Mr. Darcy, not Miss Darcy. You could never have had a child out of wedlock. Ever. And another word that you won't like: outhouse!"
We both laugh. Because she is so right.
But, inside...I think that she is so wrong too. We are creatures of our environment and I would have coped just fine. If there was no chance of Miss Darcy, I would have ended up with my Mr. Darcy and been okey dokey. Because, yes..I can fly both ways.
Bing doesn't really understand. She is being too literal. Instead, I write my weekly e-mail to my friend, Nirand. I pour out my love of Jane Austen and the way that her books just hit my heart in a way that is piercing and achy. I go on and on about walking on moors and dancing those wonderful dances of the 19th century, all that swirling and turning and prancing with a partner, only to turn again and change partners and feel that dress gliding along too. I pour my heart out to Nirand the way that I always can.
He was in town a few years ago when I was in one of my moods and we took a long walk, my arm tucked up in his, kicking through leaves. Back then, I told him of feeling sometimes that I was in the wrong time, that while I love my life, love my child, my partner, I feel so drawn to the time of horse drawn carriages and leather bound books. He had understood me back then, smiled down at me and said that yes, he sometimes felt that way too, in spite of his own good life, his happiness in his work.
Nirand didn't write back right away but that was okay. I knew I was safe with him. Yesterday, he sent me a note with a you tube attachment. It said, among other things,
I get you. I understand.
And he does.
I will eventually shake this dreamy state and return to my own body, in my own time. I know that I can always return and she will be there, Elizabeth Bennet, smiling out of her bonnet at me and nodding, taking my arm in hers as we stroll through the English countryside. Mr. Darcy will be there, too. And that will please both of us.
And now it is time for me to get up and go out for pizza with my partner and child, come home, help with homework and pull out my briefcase to get a bit of tedious work done that I should have done yesterday.
I will run my fingers over Jane's book as I leave the office and promise to return soon.
Hope your weekend was sweet.
Moods.
Bing calls them "the weepies."
But, I don't really weep all that much. Mostly....something just comes over me, something deep and beckoning, a weird hatchling of ideas, regrets, dreams, hopes, aching and yearning.
We Irish are excellent yearners.
I think of these times as my Jane days.
It starts slowly and then builds. I begin noticing things around me, how the light plays on leaves, the sounds of a radiator gurgling. Rain pattering and sluicing dreamily down windowpanes. I look at myself in mirrors and reach up to touch my face, noting freckles and softness, the way that the light plays on the left side, darkening, muting the right side.
An apple becomes something to ponder. The soft greens and pinks of apple skin that invite you to take a bite and then when one does, when one gives in, there is this satisfying c r u n c h and then the sweet tang of apple. A thin stream of apple juice runs down on my hand and I lick it with my tongue, smelling apples and thinking about riding trains and the way words look in books.
I go for long walks and something inside of me begins to build, to hurt a little in a pleasing way. My throat catches when I am on the phone for no good reason. I am suddenly completely caught up in how pretty my pocketbook is, with it's warm brown leather and a bright red cardinal stitched jauntily next to the snap.
I crave Jane Austen. I pick up one of her books, either Sense and Sensibility or my all time favorite, Pride and Prejudice.
I dive in. Sometimes with one of those crisp apples in hand, other times with nothing, just my finger twisting in my hair or cupping my chin, my pinky finger running over my mouth from time to time.
Jane enchants me with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Her writing makes me shake my head. How the hell does she DO that?
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
"I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."
"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects."
I am suddenly not here anymore at all, but somewhere else, an English countryside with a stone mansion, a brook with a bridge over it, the tapping of horse hooves slap dashing across it.
Every once in awhile, I come up for air, come up to face leaks in the plumbing that must be attended to, a bed that requires making. A car that must be driven to work.
And I manage to be there for Liv. But, only for Liv. Everyone else sort of slides into the fog in the back of my mind. I say "Pardon me?" a lot.
A psychic once told me that one of my most beloved lives had taken place in the early 19th century in the Scottish countryside and some days, I can almost believe that.
Because I yearn for it without without really understanding what exactly I want.
I think how much I would enjoy writing with a pen that required an ink bottle. How satisfying it would be to feel the scratching of the pen on paper. I want to wear a long flowing empire waisted dress, a blue one or maybe something sort of red. My hair up in a braid on the back of my neck, fastened with ornately jeweled pins.
No makeup. I want to pinch my cheeks to redden them, maybe use a bit of pomegranate to stain my lips, use a blackened stick match to make my eyebrows look sleek.
I want to take a long walk and feel my dress swooping around a bit around my legs.
I tell this to Bing and she snorts.
"I have two words for you, honey," she says. "Insulin and methatrexate."
I sigh. She's right. People like me would never have made it to true adulthood and frankly, I would have died young.
But, it wasn't as if people lived long lives back then...
I tell her this. She gently rolls her eyes. Tries again to pull me down to reality.
"Well, you would have to be one of the wealthier gentry because you would not much like to be a poor farm girl, honey. And your free spirited personality really wouldn't fly there. Imagine how it would go over if you encouraged both male and female suitors.....No. That wouldn't fly. You would have to be courted by Mr. Darcy, not Miss Darcy. You could never have had a child out of wedlock. Ever. And another word that you won't like: outhouse!"
We both laugh. Because she is so right.
But, inside...I think that she is so wrong too. We are creatures of our environment and I would have coped just fine. If there was no chance of Miss Darcy, I would have ended up with my Mr. Darcy and been okey dokey. Because, yes..I can fly both ways.
Bing doesn't really understand. She is being too literal. Instead, I write my weekly e-mail to my friend, Nirand. I pour out my love of Jane Austen and the way that her books just hit my heart in a way that is piercing and achy. I go on and on about walking on moors and dancing those wonderful dances of the 19th century, all that swirling and turning and prancing with a partner, only to turn again and change partners and feel that dress gliding along too. I pour my heart out to Nirand the way that I always can.
He was in town a few years ago when I was in one of my moods and we took a long walk, my arm tucked up in his, kicking through leaves. Back then, I told him of feeling sometimes that I was in the wrong time, that while I love my life, love my child, my partner, I feel so drawn to the time of horse drawn carriages and leather bound books. He had understood me back then, smiled down at me and said that yes, he sometimes felt that way too, in spite of his own good life, his happiness in his work.
Nirand didn't write back right away but that was okay. I knew I was safe with him. Yesterday, he sent me a note with a you tube attachment. It said, among other things,
I get you. I understand.
And he does.
I will eventually shake this dreamy state and return to my own body, in my own time. I know that I can always return and she will be there, Elizabeth Bennet, smiling out of her bonnet at me and nodding, taking my arm in hers as we stroll through the English countryside. Mr. Darcy will be there, too. And that will please both of us.
And now it is time for me to get up and go out for pizza with my partner and child, come home, help with homework and pull out my briefcase to get a bit of tedious work done that I should have done yesterday.
I will run my fingers over Jane's book as I leave the office and promise to return soon.
Hope your weekend was sweet.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sweet times at the book store.
Last evening, Liv and I went to the book store to find a birthday gift for one of her friends. We walked up and down the aisles, finally settling on a book called No Talking. I guess it is making the rounds in her classroom.
We stopped at the early childhood section and glanced around. Liv was pulled towards a book and picked it up, gently perusing it's pages.
"Can we sit down and read it together?" she asked.
It was late and I was tired. But, oh well. We found a sofa (Don't you just love bookstores with cozy chairs?) and set to reading.
My heart stilled. The scent of my child's soft hair, the feel of her skinny, bony self all snuggled up next to me was comforting. We began to read.
We were both enchanted.
For one moment in time, Liv was four years old again and my soul quieted.
I felt my throat close once, twice...but went on. This book was too good to pass up.
I remember when trips to the library and book store for books were part of our everyday life. Now, Liv generally picks out her own books. They are almost always non fiction, tomes on math or how to be a bee keeper or the secret life of bats. She is so different from me.
But, for that one moment, her glossy head settled against my arm as we read and smiled at each other, our scents mingling, our auras whirling around each other. When we were finished, we both sighed.
"Well, Livvie, we have to get this book!" I told her. "We'll take it home and tuck it away for a special little child who will love it."
She agreed but first wanted to read it to Socks. I said of course. And Bing. We had to read it to Bing.
Thank you Alison McGhee, for penning something so wonderful and giving us this magic together.
The book is called Only A Witch Can Fly.
Wonderful!
We stopped at the early childhood section and glanced around. Liv was pulled towards a book and picked it up, gently perusing it's pages.
"Can we sit down and read it together?" she asked.
It was late and I was tired. But, oh well. We found a sofa (Don't you just love bookstores with cozy chairs?) and set to reading.
My heart stilled. The scent of my child's soft hair, the feel of her skinny, bony self all snuggled up next to me was comforting. We began to read.
We were both enchanted.
For one moment in time, Liv was four years old again and my soul quieted.
I felt my throat close once, twice...but went on. This book was too good to pass up.
I remember when trips to the library and book store for books were part of our everyday life. Now, Liv generally picks out her own books. They are almost always non fiction, tomes on math or how to be a bee keeper or the secret life of bats. She is so different from me.
But, for that one moment, her glossy head settled against my arm as we read and smiled at each other, our scents mingling, our auras whirling around each other. When we were finished, we both sighed.
"Well, Livvie, we have to get this book!" I told her. "We'll take it home and tuck it away for a special little child who will love it."
She agreed but first wanted to read it to Socks. I said of course. And Bing. We had to read it to Bing.
Thank you Alison McGhee, for penning something so wonderful and giving us this magic together.
The book is called Only A Witch Can Fly.
Wonderful!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Sorry
Sorry for the new word verification on the blog. For the record, I DETEST those things and have been known to actually stop reading blogs that have it, but alas and alack, I have been attacked by a Japanese spammer who insists on commenting 40 times a day, so word verification it is. I will take it off randomly when it looks like the pee butt spammer has given up. (Sort of like I wish the pee butt stalker would...dream on.)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Compromise in marriage.
It is the one thing that is hardest for me. I am basically a selfish woman. I want to have what I want for dinner, see what I want on television and go to the movie that I want to see, as well.
Liv is spending the day at a friend's home. Bing and I decided to see a movie. She brought the paper to me and said that she had picked out two movies that she wanted to see. One was ZOMBIELAND. The other was 9.
I gave her a look, my famous you-have-got-to-be-fucking-kidding look and took the paper from her. I then told her that I had my two picked out:
1) BRIGHT STAR
2) CAPITALISM, A LOVE STORY
She rolled her eyes. Said that she taught all day five days a week and didn't think she could stand sitting through some poetic movie about John Keats.
Except that she pronounced Keats as Kates.
I rolled my eyes. I told her that Keats was Keets and Yeats was Yates. And besides, she was a MUSIC teacher, not an English teacher, so what was the big deal about seeing a movie about a famous poet.
She held her ground in true Bing fashion.
"Whatever," she said. "And I know you love Michael Moore but I'm not in the mood to see some political thing today."
She is NEVER in the mood for good movies, in my opinion.
I retorted that I was not in the mood for her movies either.
"But, you LIKE Woody Harrelson," she tried.
"Not that much," I replied.
We went back to the paper. This was going to involve, you guessed it, COMPROMISE.
I fucking HATE compromise.
I sighed.
"How about WHIP IT?" I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
"How about this one?" she countered, pointing to the movie.
I sighed again. I looked at the movie. It had gotten pretty good reviews.
I sulkily agreed. It is not BRIGHT STAR, but it will do on a cold, raw day in October. A day after a freak snowfall total of nearly 4 inches. In OCTOBER!
"And afterwards, we need to pick up detergent and toilet paper at the store," Bing reminded me. "We forgot to get it yesterday when we went grocery shopping."
"Well, your mother called to say that Walgreens has toilet paper for sale," I said. "She also said that Walgreens had shampoo and Windex on sale...."
Bing gave me a side long glance. "I say, we go to the movie, stop for what we need and come home and maybe take a little....um...nap... before Liv gets home."
I gave her my sexiest smile.
"Just think of what a great nap you would get if we went to see BRIGHT STAR," I told her.
No dice.
We are going to see this:
Anyone seen it?
So, what do you compromise about in your marriage? Your job? With your kids?
Do you ever win?
Because I don't think I will EVER get to see BRIGHT STAR. At least not with Bing....
Liv is spending the day at a friend's home. Bing and I decided to see a movie. She brought the paper to me and said that she had picked out two movies that she wanted to see. One was ZOMBIELAND. The other was 9.
I gave her a look, my famous you-have-got-to-be-fucking-kidding look and took the paper from her. I then told her that I had my two picked out:
1) BRIGHT STAR
2) CAPITALISM, A LOVE STORY
She rolled her eyes. Said that she taught all day five days a week and didn't think she could stand sitting through some poetic movie about John Keats.
Except that she pronounced Keats as Kates.
I rolled my eyes. I told her that Keats was Keets and Yeats was Yates. And besides, she was a MUSIC teacher, not an English teacher, so what was the big deal about seeing a movie about a famous poet.
She held her ground in true Bing fashion.
"Whatever," she said. "And I know you love Michael Moore but I'm not in the mood to see some political thing today."
She is NEVER in the mood for good movies, in my opinion.
I retorted that I was not in the mood for her movies either.
"But, you LIKE Woody Harrelson," she tried.
"Not that much," I replied.
We went back to the paper. This was going to involve, you guessed it, COMPROMISE.
I fucking HATE compromise.
I sighed.
"How about WHIP IT?" I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
"How about this one?" she countered, pointing to the movie.
I sighed again. I looked at the movie. It had gotten pretty good reviews.
I sulkily agreed. It is not BRIGHT STAR, but it will do on a cold, raw day in October. A day after a freak snowfall total of nearly 4 inches. In OCTOBER!
"And afterwards, we need to pick up detergent and toilet paper at the store," Bing reminded me. "We forgot to get it yesterday when we went grocery shopping."
"Well, your mother called to say that Walgreens has toilet paper for sale," I said. "She also said that Walgreens had shampoo and Windex on sale...."
Bing gave me a side long glance. "I say, we go to the movie, stop for what we need and come home and maybe take a little....um...nap... before Liv gets home."
I gave her my sexiest smile.
"Just think of what a great nap you would get if we went to see BRIGHT STAR," I told her.
No dice.
We are going to see this:
Anyone seen it?
So, what do you compromise about in your marriage? Your job? With your kids?
Do you ever win?
Because I don't think I will EVER get to see BRIGHT STAR. At least not with Bing....
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Dear Anna,
Dear Anna,
I've been thinking a lot about the post that you made on my blog a few days ago. The one where you wrote that sometimes my blog posts make you sad because you feel like you may never be as "supple, happy and carefree" as I was at 20. That you are 24 years old and suffering from Hashimoto's disease and feel like you will probably never get a chance to be that way.
Sweetie, hindsight is 20/20. I look back on my twenties with the hard won wisdom of a 51 year old woman. To be honest, I look at ALL twenty somethings with a twinge of envy these days. Long gone are my perky breasts, my translucent skin and my bounding energy. A few days ago, I was in a Walgreens and saw two twenty something girls looking at bright colored nail polish. When I looked at it too, they looked incredulously at me as if to ask why some old broad like me could ever be interested in gold nail polish.
Well, I'm not dead yet. I wanted to tell those girls that back in my day of being twenty something, I was much prettier than they were and they would have gone quiet around me instead of that silly giggling. But, I had to settle for driving a nicer car than theirs and having much better insurance rates.
Here is the truth about me when I was in my twenties:
1) I had good looks, but I wasn't drop dead gorgeous or anything.
I was never model pretty. I was average. I hated my mouse brown hair, but didn't want the bother of dyeing it, so I settled for jazzing it up with streaks now and then. My body WAS supple, but that is more about being twenty than about being me. I was basically flat, never really had a bust to brag about. I didn't wear short shorts or mini skirts, mainly because I had been raised in such a strict Catholic home that I knew much more about how to hide my body than to reveal it. My dress style was mostly odd pairings of combat boots and prairie skirts. I sometimes wore a men's shirt and tie over my jeans. I was a far cry from a girlie girl in my dress style, although I did wear makeup and looking back at photos of myself...I overdid it. A lot.
I wasn't the girl who walked into parties and got looks. If I was in a conversation, I could sometimes woo with my bantering skills and I did know how to flirt properly, but I seldom got a true up and down look from men or women. In looking back on the faces of the 1970's, I was much more Jenny Agutter and much less Farrah Fawcett.
2) I got almost all A's all the time.
Like most 20 somethings, I pretty much had goals in mind, but I was never one of those women who just knew they were going to be a doctor, a lawyer or a singer, etc. I was really good at English, sucked at Math. I knew vaguely that I wanted a profession where I could make money, but no real idea about how to make that happen. I ended up where I am today mostly because of snap decisions I made when I couldn't procrastinate any longer. In retrospect, I think I made a few bad decisions. I would have made a good high school English teacher, I think. I would have also been happier, I believe. But, I am what I am and I can always go back to school and do that if I wish. Right now, the thought of going back to school is not appealing at all and I am making good money, so I think I will stay put.
My grades were good, mostly because I was terrified of showing my mother a bad GPA. And okay, also because I was ambitious. I had this need to be at the top of any class that I was in. It was almost a compulsion for me, and it was hardly healthy. The sad thing is that I am STILL that way. At a freakin' baby shower, I was sweating bullets because I worried that the woman sitting next to me would figure out more words from the letters in BABY SHOWER. Pretty pathetic. Don't give me any cake, but DAMN IT, I want to win that jar of hand cream for finding the most letters...
3) I was in denial about my health.
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (in the same autoimmune family as Hashimoto's, by the way) when I was 22. I HATED the treatment. I did it to stay alive, but I was not over zealous about my diet. To this day, it pisses me off that I will never be able to win SURVIVOR (and with my insistence on winning everything from Clue to Monopoly to hand lotion at a baby shower, you know I would be a sore loser if I was voted off before I at least got to the jury!) because I have all these drugs that I have to take daily to stay alive. I often felt jealous of other twenty somethings who didn't have to give themselves shots every day.
4) I was not sure of myself. Not a confident person.
I often felt very unsure of myself, and less than. I had to work my way through school and some days were hard. I lived in an apartment for YEARS that had a big hole in the kitchen floor where I could look into the apartment under mine. I worked in the school cafeteria and did odd jobs (did tarot cards in a restaurant, worked at a Dairy Queen, was counter help at a dry cleaners) to pay my cheap ass rent. I would look over at the sorority girls while I bussed tables in my dreaded hair net and would wonder what it would be like to have Daddy pay all my bills.
5) I was a drug addict but pretended I wasn't.
I drank too much, did too many bong hits and tried every drug you can think of at least once, even heroin. I did this all through college and well into my professional life. It was not until I was in my mid thirties that I finally realized that I was killing myself and needed to stop. Now, I occasionally have a drink, but I don't smoke anything or do any drugs with the exception of one time when I bought grass and got high with my sister when she was in serious pain from her cancer. It is our little secret, so don't tell anyone, okay? Since my partner is completely drug free and always has been, this is not all that hard to pull off. Bing won't even take Tylenol when she has a headache. The truth? I would probably do some peyote occasionally if I wasn't a role model for a ten year old child. I am clean and shiny....for her. And for myself, if I am honest. But, hell...okay...mostly for her.
So, Anna...sweetness...please don't feel as if I was this gorgeous college coed with my baby blues flashing and my thighs never touching. I was not. By a long shot. I was like most twenty somethings. I was normal. Naive. Thought that I knew more than I did. Somedays, I felt dog ugly. Other days, I looked in the mirror and thought that I was not bad looking.
Of course, at 51, I look back at that 20 year old me and see all that I am not now. I am not able to eat a whole bag of potato chips and handfuls of oreos and not gain a pound. I have cellulite. I can't bound up stairs two at a time. When the clothes come off, the breasts droop and there is that turkey neck just waiting to emerge. My hands, elbows and feet look like they belong to a 51 year old, not a 20 year old. And believe me, there is a difference. My lipstick sometimes feathers because I have these tiny wrinkles around my lips. My skin is so dry that I put baby oil on it before I take a shower. I wouldn't mind having that mouse brown hair back. My hair is more gray now than brown. And I still refuse to dye it.
I think you sound like an interesting woman. You have a fascinating blog. Don't short change yourself, you are a force to be reckoned with. You are a person of great value. Don't lose sight of that.
Life will unfold for you as it did for me. It will happen in some ways that please you and others that do not. Either way, you'll survive. It is bullshit that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It makes you weaker. But, you will learn that you have some pluck and that is worth something. You will realize along the way that nearly everyone you meet has their own battles that they are fighting. Just different ones than yours.
Believe me, Anna...I went to plenty of parties where no one noticed me even though I was wearing some great heels and my hair looked shiny. I had nights where I looked at myself in the mirror and truly did not like what I saw. (I still do, but when you are 51, you just sigh and go to bed instead of staring out the window, depressed.)
You will have an interesting life. Great stories to tell. Wonderful people to walk into your space.
Have fun! Be yourself. You will be just fine. I promise.
Sincerely and with great respect,
M
I've been thinking a lot about the post that you made on my blog a few days ago. The one where you wrote that sometimes my blog posts make you sad because you feel like you may never be as "supple, happy and carefree" as I was at 20. That you are 24 years old and suffering from Hashimoto's disease and feel like you will probably never get a chance to be that way.
Sweetie, hindsight is 20/20. I look back on my twenties with the hard won wisdom of a 51 year old woman. To be honest, I look at ALL twenty somethings with a twinge of envy these days. Long gone are my perky breasts, my translucent skin and my bounding energy. A few days ago, I was in a Walgreens and saw two twenty something girls looking at bright colored nail polish. When I looked at it too, they looked incredulously at me as if to ask why some old broad like me could ever be interested in gold nail polish.
Well, I'm not dead yet. I wanted to tell those girls that back in my day of being twenty something, I was much prettier than they were and they would have gone quiet around me instead of that silly giggling. But, I had to settle for driving a nicer car than theirs and having much better insurance rates.
Here is the truth about me when I was in my twenties:
1) I had good looks, but I wasn't drop dead gorgeous or anything.
I was never model pretty. I was average. I hated my mouse brown hair, but didn't want the bother of dyeing it, so I settled for jazzing it up with streaks now and then. My body WAS supple, but that is more about being twenty than about being me. I was basically flat, never really had a bust to brag about. I didn't wear short shorts or mini skirts, mainly because I had been raised in such a strict Catholic home that I knew much more about how to hide my body than to reveal it. My dress style was mostly odd pairings of combat boots and prairie skirts. I sometimes wore a men's shirt and tie over my jeans. I was a far cry from a girlie girl in my dress style, although I did wear makeup and looking back at photos of myself...I overdid it. A lot.
I wasn't the girl who walked into parties and got looks. If I was in a conversation, I could sometimes woo with my bantering skills and I did know how to flirt properly, but I seldom got a true up and down look from men or women. In looking back on the faces of the 1970's, I was much more Jenny Agutter and much less Farrah Fawcett.
2) I got almost all A's all the time.
Like most 20 somethings, I pretty much had goals in mind, but I was never one of those women who just knew they were going to be a doctor, a lawyer or a singer, etc. I was really good at English, sucked at Math. I knew vaguely that I wanted a profession where I could make money, but no real idea about how to make that happen. I ended up where I am today mostly because of snap decisions I made when I couldn't procrastinate any longer. In retrospect, I think I made a few bad decisions. I would have made a good high school English teacher, I think. I would have also been happier, I believe. But, I am what I am and I can always go back to school and do that if I wish. Right now, the thought of going back to school is not appealing at all and I am making good money, so I think I will stay put.
My grades were good, mostly because I was terrified of showing my mother a bad GPA. And okay, also because I was ambitious. I had this need to be at the top of any class that I was in. It was almost a compulsion for me, and it was hardly healthy. The sad thing is that I am STILL that way. At a freakin' baby shower, I was sweating bullets because I worried that the woman sitting next to me would figure out more words from the letters in BABY SHOWER. Pretty pathetic. Don't give me any cake, but DAMN IT, I want to win that jar of hand cream for finding the most letters...
3) I was in denial about my health.
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (in the same autoimmune family as Hashimoto's, by the way) when I was 22. I HATED the treatment. I did it to stay alive, but I was not over zealous about my diet. To this day, it pisses me off that I will never be able to win SURVIVOR (and with my insistence on winning everything from Clue to Monopoly to hand lotion at a baby shower, you know I would be a sore loser if I was voted off before I at least got to the jury!) because I have all these drugs that I have to take daily to stay alive. I often felt jealous of other twenty somethings who didn't have to give themselves shots every day.
4) I was not sure of myself. Not a confident person.
I often felt very unsure of myself, and less than. I had to work my way through school and some days were hard. I lived in an apartment for YEARS that had a big hole in the kitchen floor where I could look into the apartment under mine. I worked in the school cafeteria and did odd jobs (did tarot cards in a restaurant, worked at a Dairy Queen, was counter help at a dry cleaners) to pay my cheap ass rent. I would look over at the sorority girls while I bussed tables in my dreaded hair net and would wonder what it would be like to have Daddy pay all my bills.
5) I was a drug addict but pretended I wasn't.
I drank too much, did too many bong hits and tried every drug you can think of at least once, even heroin. I did this all through college and well into my professional life. It was not until I was in my mid thirties that I finally realized that I was killing myself and needed to stop. Now, I occasionally have a drink, but I don't smoke anything or do any drugs with the exception of one time when I bought grass and got high with my sister when she was in serious pain from her cancer. It is our little secret, so don't tell anyone, okay? Since my partner is completely drug free and always has been, this is not all that hard to pull off. Bing won't even take Tylenol when she has a headache. The truth? I would probably do some peyote occasionally if I wasn't a role model for a ten year old child. I am clean and shiny....for her. And for myself, if I am honest. But, hell...okay...mostly for her.
So, Anna...sweetness...please don't feel as if I was this gorgeous college coed with my baby blues flashing and my thighs never touching. I was not. By a long shot. I was like most twenty somethings. I was normal. Naive. Thought that I knew more than I did. Somedays, I felt dog ugly. Other days, I looked in the mirror and thought that I was not bad looking.
Of course, at 51, I look back at that 20 year old me and see all that I am not now. I am not able to eat a whole bag of potato chips and handfuls of oreos and not gain a pound. I have cellulite. I can't bound up stairs two at a time. When the clothes come off, the breasts droop and there is that turkey neck just waiting to emerge. My hands, elbows and feet look like they belong to a 51 year old, not a 20 year old. And believe me, there is a difference. My lipstick sometimes feathers because I have these tiny wrinkles around my lips. My skin is so dry that I put baby oil on it before I take a shower. I wouldn't mind having that mouse brown hair back. My hair is more gray now than brown. And I still refuse to dye it.
I think you sound like an interesting woman. You have a fascinating blog. Don't short change yourself, you are a force to be reckoned with. You are a person of great value. Don't lose sight of that.
Life will unfold for you as it did for me. It will happen in some ways that please you and others that do not. Either way, you'll survive. It is bullshit that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It makes you weaker. But, you will learn that you have some pluck and that is worth something. You will realize along the way that nearly everyone you meet has their own battles that they are fighting. Just different ones than yours.
Believe me, Anna...I went to plenty of parties where no one noticed me even though I was wearing some great heels and my hair looked shiny. I had nights where I looked at myself in the mirror and truly did not like what I saw. (I still do, but when you are 51, you just sigh and go to bed instead of staring out the window, depressed.)
You will have an interesting life. Great stories to tell. Wonderful people to walk into your space.
Have fun! Be yourself. You will be just fine. I promise.
Sincerely and with great respect,
M
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Falling a little bit in love with the old man in the elevator.
I had to go to a meeting in a large ten story building downtown this morning. My meeting was on the 9th floor. Several of us were waiting on the 1st floor for the elevator to come. A group of teachers were there. They had a meeting on the 8th floor.
We all crowded in. On the way up, one teacher was grumbling to another about our public school system's new policy of offering sensitivity training.
She said, "We don't need no help getting along."
An elderly gentleman was standing next to me. After the teachers exited on their floor, he looked at me and smiled gently.
"That teacher used a double negative," he told me. I nodded sadly.
"So, I simply discounted what she was saying," he went on. "It's unfortunate."
I smiled hugely at him.
"I like you already and I don't even know your name," I told him.
He held out his hand and we shook.
"I'm Woodrow," he said.
"I'm Maria," I said.
We both got off on the ninth floor. He went to his left and I went to my right. We waved goodbye to each other.
I think I fell a little bit in love on this raw October day.
We all crowded in. On the way up, one teacher was grumbling to another about our public school system's new policy of offering sensitivity training.
She said, "We don't need no help getting along."
An elderly gentleman was standing next to me. After the teachers exited on their floor, he looked at me and smiled gently.
"That teacher used a double negative," he told me. I nodded sadly.
"So, I simply discounted what she was saying," he went on. "It's unfortunate."
I smiled hugely at him.
"I like you already and I don't even know your name," I told him.
He held out his hand and we shook.
"I'm Woodrow," he said.
"I'm Maria," I said.
We both got off on the ninth floor. He went to his left and I went to my right. We waved goodbye to each other.
I think I fell a little bit in love on this raw October day.
Roman
Thanks to all for responding to that last post. I was overwhelmed and so impressed with y'all. And got some ideas for good books to read, good movies to see...
Ok...I have another one to throw out there.
Roman Polanski.
What do you think about this guy?
I know exactly where I stand, but I am willing to keep an open mind.
I think he stinks.
I am wondering how anyone anywhere could EVER think it was okay to ply a thirteen year old child with drugs and then fuck her in the ass.
I don't care if her parents weren't around and should have been.
I don't care if it was consensual (although most reports state that it was not and honestly, when a child is drug riddled, she is hardly up to consenting to anything.)
It is just WRONG to do this.
It is our job as adults to protect children, not hurt them.
And it is NEVER, EVER okay to do what he did. Not under any circumstances, ever.
I also don't care if the assault took place decades ago. So the fuck what?
I don't care if Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Weinstein, Salmon Rushdie and Mike Nichols think it should all be water under the bridge and hey, let's let bygones be bygones.
He gave a 13 year old girl drugs and then sexually assaulted her.
This was wrong.
Adults need to stand up to protect children from other adults like this.
Now, I have a question for you. What if that were your daughter, your niece, your student, your daughter's best friend, the little girl next door?
But, like I said, I will try hard to be open minded.
Any takers?
Ok...I have another one to throw out there.
Roman Polanski.
What do you think about this guy?
I know exactly where I stand, but I am willing to keep an open mind.
I think he stinks.
I am wondering how anyone anywhere could EVER think it was okay to ply a thirteen year old child with drugs and then fuck her in the ass.
I don't care if her parents weren't around and should have been.
I don't care if it was consensual (although most reports state that it was not and honestly, when a child is drug riddled, she is hardly up to consenting to anything.)
It is just WRONG to do this.
It is our job as adults to protect children, not hurt them.
And it is NEVER, EVER okay to do what he did. Not under any circumstances, ever.
I also don't care if the assault took place decades ago. So the fuck what?
I don't care if Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Weinstein, Salmon Rushdie and Mike Nichols think it should all be water under the bridge and hey, let's let bygones be bygones.
He gave a 13 year old girl drugs and then sexually assaulted her.
This was wrong.
Adults need to stand up to protect children from other adults like this.
Now, I have a question for you. What if that were your daughter, your niece, your student, your daughter's best friend, the little girl next door?
But, like I said, I will try hard to be open minded.
Any takers?
Sunday, October 04, 2009
CHALLENGE
My google analytics tell me that I have more than 500 people per day reading my blog. So..I am curious. What kind of people read me? Three questions. All you need to do is answer them. If you don't want to tell me who you are, just sign off anonymously. But, I am curious.
1) What is one word that describes you? Just one. Ok. Two at the most. No..three.
2) Where do you live and do you like it? (You can be cagey, just say "midwest" or "yankee", etc.)
3) What is one of your favorites? (Book, movie, song, quote...you pick)
I want to know who is out there.
So...WHO ARE YOU?
And isn't it cool that we are all in this place together? Who'da thunk it just twenty years ago?
On your mark, get set. GO. C'mon. Don't be shy. No coward's soul is yours.
1) What is one word that describes you? Just one. Ok. Two at the most. No..three.
2) Where do you live and do you like it? (You can be cagey, just say "midwest" or "yankee", etc.)
3) What is one of your favorites? (Book, movie, song, quote...you pick)
I want to know who is out there.
So...WHO ARE YOU?
And isn't it cool that we are all in this place together? Who'da thunk it just twenty years ago?
On your mark, get set. GO. C'mon. Don't be shy. No coward's soul is yours.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
One step leads to the next.
I was watching Liv play soccer this morning. It was soooo cold outside. We finally gave in and turned on the boiler last night. There is that moment when you flip the on switch and then there is a brief pause and then....yes....you hear the pilot light swish and the water begins slowly filing into the pipes that circulate around our home, hot water. The nearly century old radiators begin their wintery noises, the slight clanks and clicks that mean warmth around here.
The house warms. Slowly. At bedtime, we hurry from the bathroom, teeth newly brushed to slide under the covers, toes searching for toes to warm themselves on. When the alarm goes off in the morning, I moan inside, hate to slide out from the soft warmth of Bing.
But, I did it. I got out and hurriedly dressed, sliding on sweat pants and a sweat shirt. Tennis shoes and warm socks. No makeup. Just a quick brush of teeth and a few bites of yogurt and we are gone. Liv has on her warm up pants, shorts under them. A warm shirt under her soccer shirt. Knee pads. Cleats. Elbow guards. We turn the heat up high in the car on the way to the game.
Just last week, I only needed a sweater. Now, I have my warm jacket, gloves and my warm wool cap. It is unattractive, but necessary.
As we drive, we point out trees to each other that are turning already. It is October on the prairie.
It is a hard game for Liv's team. They play an all boy team of bruisers with burly yelling fathers on the sidelines. They mean business.
They beat us 3 to zip.
Liv trots over at halftime to tell me that she is pooped. This other team is GOOD. She looks almost bewildered. They have not had to play this hard just to keep another team from scoring before. I always sit by Dan. His daughter is a klutz, but she tries hard. When Liv and his daughter come over at halftime, Dan tells them that they look sluggish out there, Jeez...does he need to go buy them some Red Bull? They look sheepishly at each other and slink away. Dan and I chuckle.
"I don't believe in making nice," he tells me. "They need to step up there and start attacking that ball. They look like a couple of...girls....out there."
I pretend that I might pour my thermos of hot coffee on him. Tell him that they ARE girls and they ARE playing like girls and that is JUST DANDY. Knock off the sexist remarks, will ya, you big dick?
We both laugh.
He grins at me.
"Did you ever imagine that you would be a soccer mom in your wildest dreams?" he asks me.
I tell him no. I never did. If someone had told me at 20 that I would be sitting on a soccer field, freezing my ass off to watch my ten year old daughter play soccer when I was 51, I would have snorted. I had plans to be a world traveler, maybe be on the cutting edge of some medical miracle. Children had no place in my itinerary.
If they had, I certainly would never have smoked all those joints or drank all that gin.
Someone once said that life happens when you are making other plans.
Bingo.
I always saw myself as single forever and a certified career woman. I planned to have a grand time fucking around a lot, making enough money to have a vacation house on some island somewhere. I never planned to say the word binky or even know what one was. I was not going to be the sort of woman who held other women's babies and oohed and aahhed over them. I didn't even want to be trusted with watching their purses.
When I was in my twenties, it was not uncommon to run around and party. I had lots of friends who did just that. Weekends were for sleeping late, fucking another person senseless (and hoping that they reciprocated) and going out to movies, to parties, to bars, to anywhere but home watching SNL.
When I was in my thirties, I realized that everyone I knew had sort of um...settled down. Not me. I was full steam ahead. I would look at my friends and co-workers pulling out their baby pictures and talking in the break room about Janie taking her first steps or Billy keeping them up all night and I thought THANK YOU GOD THAT THIS IS NOT ME. That last thing I wanted to do was burp some baby. I vowed that I would never change a diaper. Ever. For any reason.
By the time I was 40, most of my peer group had children who were in grade school or older. And then, out of nowhere....
I wanted a baby.
I looked around myself and realized that I was just....done with it. Done with the solitary life. I didn't really want a partner, but I did want to be someone's mother. I secretly worried that I would suck at it. It probably wasn't going to happen anyway. I was too old, had abused my body too much, had too much bad karma with all that dissing of babies in my youth.
When Liv was born, I was one of those women in those sappy movies who take one look at their child and fall madly in love. In one day, I was transformed completely and never looked back.
So, here I was now, sitting in my lawn chair on the sidelines of a soccer field, cheering on a group of red cheeked children as they rough and tumbled over a ball. Afterwards, there was laundry to do at home, a football game to watch, a dishwasher to be started and emptied. Bed to change. Toilets to clean. Dogs to walk.
I am about as domesticated as it gets.
Who knew?
I imagine hunting down my 20 year old self and showing her a home movie of herself at 51. A home movie of her discussing with her partner whether to re-roof the house this year or next. Of scrubbing a floor. Helping her daughter with homework. Giving the dog a bath. Gingerly getting out of bed because there is a nip in the air and her arthritis is acting up again. Looking down at her hands and seeing crepey skin, looking at her neck and seeing more crepey skin. A face in the mirror with crow's feet. A very big crow's feet.
Sensible shoes. No fuck me heels anymore.
A coat purchased because it was warm and well insulated. Not because it was great looking.
No bong anywhere in the house.
A single bottle of wine in the fridge that is rarely imbibed. A gallon of milk instead. Also juicy juice and a half gallon of chocolate milk.
A tube of cream to be smeared over the eyelids at night.
Nancy Drew books in the bookcase. A backpack on the dining room table full of 5th grade math homework.
Some things never change. Books laying all over, some to be read soon, others pretty soon.
Du-wop lipstick.
A garden in the back yard.
But, wait. Hold up. I never even intended to HAVE a back yard, so no garden was on my list.
Somewhere along the line I became somebody's mother and I am no longer sleeping until noon because I got in from my date at 3:00 a.m. Stoned.
Now, I am drinking juicy juice and watching SNL with my partner on Saturday nights....IF we can stay awake that long. Some nights, we are lucky to watch the news before we nod off.
And the weird part? This coat fits. I like it. It suits me. I would RATHER be sitting at a freezing cold soccer game at 8 a.m. than sleeping in and waking up alone.
I wonder if all twenty year olds were like me? Were you? When you were twenty..what did you imagine your life would look like at 51? Or 30. Or 29. Or 43. Or 39.
Did you become what you dreamed you would be?
Or did one step lead to the next and then there you were...sitting in a lawn chair at 8 a.m. with a thermos of coffee, with your wool cap on that makes your hair stay flat as a pancake for the rest of the day?
But, smiling from ear to ear....
The house warms. Slowly. At bedtime, we hurry from the bathroom, teeth newly brushed to slide under the covers, toes searching for toes to warm themselves on. When the alarm goes off in the morning, I moan inside, hate to slide out from the soft warmth of Bing.
But, I did it. I got out and hurriedly dressed, sliding on sweat pants and a sweat shirt. Tennis shoes and warm socks. No makeup. Just a quick brush of teeth and a few bites of yogurt and we are gone. Liv has on her warm up pants, shorts under them. A warm shirt under her soccer shirt. Knee pads. Cleats. Elbow guards. We turn the heat up high in the car on the way to the game.
Just last week, I only needed a sweater. Now, I have my warm jacket, gloves and my warm wool cap. It is unattractive, but necessary.
As we drive, we point out trees to each other that are turning already. It is October on the prairie.
It is a hard game for Liv's team. They play an all boy team of bruisers with burly yelling fathers on the sidelines. They mean business.
They beat us 3 to zip.
Liv trots over at halftime to tell me that she is pooped. This other team is GOOD. She looks almost bewildered. They have not had to play this hard just to keep another team from scoring before. I always sit by Dan. His daughter is a klutz, but she tries hard. When Liv and his daughter come over at halftime, Dan tells them that they look sluggish out there, Jeez...does he need to go buy them some Red Bull? They look sheepishly at each other and slink away. Dan and I chuckle.
"I don't believe in making nice," he tells me. "They need to step up there and start attacking that ball. They look like a couple of...girls....out there."
I pretend that I might pour my thermos of hot coffee on him. Tell him that they ARE girls and they ARE playing like girls and that is JUST DANDY. Knock off the sexist remarks, will ya, you big dick?
We both laugh.
He grins at me.
"Did you ever imagine that you would be a soccer mom in your wildest dreams?" he asks me.
I tell him no. I never did. If someone had told me at 20 that I would be sitting on a soccer field, freezing my ass off to watch my ten year old daughter play soccer when I was 51, I would have snorted. I had plans to be a world traveler, maybe be on the cutting edge of some medical miracle. Children had no place in my itinerary.
If they had, I certainly would never have smoked all those joints or drank all that gin.
Someone once said that life happens when you are making other plans.
Bingo.
I always saw myself as single forever and a certified career woman. I planned to have a grand time fucking around a lot, making enough money to have a vacation house on some island somewhere. I never planned to say the word binky or even know what one was. I was not going to be the sort of woman who held other women's babies and oohed and aahhed over them. I didn't even want to be trusted with watching their purses.
When I was in my twenties, it was not uncommon to run around and party. I had lots of friends who did just that. Weekends were for sleeping late, fucking another person senseless (and hoping that they reciprocated) and going out to movies, to parties, to bars, to anywhere but home watching SNL.
When I was in my thirties, I realized that everyone I knew had sort of um...settled down. Not me. I was full steam ahead. I would look at my friends and co-workers pulling out their baby pictures and talking in the break room about Janie taking her first steps or Billy keeping them up all night and I thought THANK YOU GOD THAT THIS IS NOT ME. That last thing I wanted to do was burp some baby. I vowed that I would never change a diaper. Ever. For any reason.
By the time I was 40, most of my peer group had children who were in grade school or older. And then, out of nowhere....
I wanted a baby.
I looked around myself and realized that I was just....done with it. Done with the solitary life. I didn't really want a partner, but I did want to be someone's mother. I secretly worried that I would suck at it. It probably wasn't going to happen anyway. I was too old, had abused my body too much, had too much bad karma with all that dissing of babies in my youth.
When Liv was born, I was one of those women in those sappy movies who take one look at their child and fall madly in love. In one day, I was transformed completely and never looked back.
So, here I was now, sitting in my lawn chair on the sidelines of a soccer field, cheering on a group of red cheeked children as they rough and tumbled over a ball. Afterwards, there was laundry to do at home, a football game to watch, a dishwasher to be started and emptied. Bed to change. Toilets to clean. Dogs to walk.
I am about as domesticated as it gets.
Who knew?
I imagine hunting down my 20 year old self and showing her a home movie of herself at 51. A home movie of her discussing with her partner whether to re-roof the house this year or next. Of scrubbing a floor. Helping her daughter with homework. Giving the dog a bath. Gingerly getting out of bed because there is a nip in the air and her arthritis is acting up again. Looking down at her hands and seeing crepey skin, looking at her neck and seeing more crepey skin. A face in the mirror with crow's feet. A very big crow's feet.
Sensible shoes. No fuck me heels anymore.
A coat purchased because it was warm and well insulated. Not because it was great looking.
No bong anywhere in the house.
A single bottle of wine in the fridge that is rarely imbibed. A gallon of milk instead. Also juicy juice and a half gallon of chocolate milk.
A tube of cream to be smeared over the eyelids at night.
Nancy Drew books in the bookcase. A backpack on the dining room table full of 5th grade math homework.
Some things never change. Books laying all over, some to be read soon, others pretty soon.
Du-wop lipstick.
A garden in the back yard.
But, wait. Hold up. I never even intended to HAVE a back yard, so no garden was on my list.
Somewhere along the line I became somebody's mother and I am no longer sleeping until noon because I got in from my date at 3:00 a.m. Stoned.
Now, I am drinking juicy juice and watching SNL with my partner on Saturday nights....IF we can stay awake that long. Some nights, we are lucky to watch the news before we nod off.
And the weird part? This coat fits. I like it. It suits me. I would RATHER be sitting at a freezing cold soccer game at 8 a.m. than sleeping in and waking up alone.
I wonder if all twenty year olds were like me? Were you? When you were twenty..what did you imagine your life would look like at 51? Or 30. Or 29. Or 43. Or 39.
Did you become what you dreamed you would be?
Or did one step lead to the next and then there you were...sitting in a lawn chair at 8 a.m. with a thermos of coffee, with your wool cap on that makes your hair stay flat as a pancake for the rest of the day?
But, smiling from ear to ear....
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Where are they now?
Do you ever wonder about all your roads not taken? All those paths that were beckoning to you at certain times in your life that you either heeded or ignored?
I've been thinking a lot about this shit lately. I think it is just my mood. I feel edgy and reckless, more like a twenty year old than a 51 year old.
So, I was thinking back to when I was twenty, thinking of what choices were offered, what roads beckoned me.
I was a junior in college when I was twenty. When I had the chance to be a rock band groupie. Bing and I were dorm mates. She hung out with a group of very politically active lesbians. I was sort of splayed all over. Literally and figuratively. I hung out with Bing's crowd when I went to the lesbian bars, hung out with a few bookish friends that I had made in various English Lit classes. I dated both men and women and in the late 70's, that was considered pretty wild and crazy. A bong was not a stranger to me. Nor were cigarettes or whiskey. My drink was gin and tonic back then, though, and even though I was underage, it was easy to get it. I made straight A's in order to keep my scholarship, I studied voraciously during the week. But, on the weekends, I was a party girl.
My scholarship paid for my room and books but not my meals so I worked in the cafeteria as a jill-of-all-trades in order to earn my one free meal every day. Sometimes I bussed tables, other times I wore the dreaded hair net and served up the tater tots. Sometimes I helped the cooks. I got one free meal daily and I almost always picked dinner as the freebie. I would load my plate up with an enormous amount of food, always take at least one piece of fruit and rolls and cheese along with the main meal. I would stuff the fruit in my back pack for breakfast the next day and the cheese and rolls for my lunch. I got by.
One Friday morning as I was standing in my hair net, scooping out powdered eggs, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money that evening. I often did this, working as a water pourer at banquets at professor's going away parties, etc. She told me that a rock band was playing that night in the hall and that as part of their contract, the kitchen was to supply them with sandwiches and chips and fruit before the concert. Did I want to haul the food to the back stage area? All I would have to do was take it and set it out on a table and that would be it, I could then disappear.
Sounded like easy money to me. I never went to the concerts. I wasn't a big college band fan so I had no idea who was playing. I agreed to do it.
So, that evening, I was paired with a highly excitable girl named Doris, who was a bouncy girl with a large nose and a voice that didn't fit her physique. On the outside, she looked like a truck driver's moll, but she had this Minnie Mouse voice that just made you have to stop and stare sometimes. Anyway, Doris was beside herself with excitement. She loved this band, adored their music, wanted to meet the band so badly that she was ready to pee her pants. The supervisor led us to a cart loaded up with platters of sandwiches and bags of chips, a huge bowl of fruits of all kinds. She handed us hairnets and sternly instructed us to put them on and KEEP THEM ON UNTIL WE LEFT THE FOOD.
We put them on and then yanked them right back off in the hall on the way to the service elevator when we were out of her sight.
Doris was nearly hyperventilating. She squealed and kept grabbing my arm as if we were going to meet the Stones or something instead of this group called....welll....let's just call them Go West and see if any of you figure it out. When the elevator doors opened to the music hall, she showed me that her teeth were chattering, she was so scared. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
Let's just get this shit over with, so I can get back to the dorm and find a bar to go to. That is what I was thinking. We had each been paid twenty bucks and it was already burning a hole in my pocket.
We found the door back stage and some self important campus security guards were standing at attention. They actually inspected our cart as if we might be smuggling in paparazzi to sneak photos of this unfamous group. They let us in. Doris, of course, tripped and fell and nearly took me and the cart down with her hefty little self, so we made an impression right off the bat.
I kept my head down after showing my id to a manager type looking guy who came forward. I headed towards a table that had already been set up and began placing the food out on it. A group of what I supposed was the band came rushing to the table as if we were bringing lobster and caviar instead of roast beef sandwiches.
"FOOD! The grubs here!" They acted like they hadn't eaten all day. I wondered if, like me, they had to work for their dinners.
Okay...they were all pretty good looking guys. One guy in particular. Remember, this was the 70's so he had on a vest with no shirt and some black leathery pants. His hair was long and wavy. They were friendly guys, invited Doris and I to join them in chowing down the grub. Doris, of course, blushed scarlet and acted like she was invited to eat with Bob Dylan or something. I said thanks and declined and darted for the doors.
I was almost to the elevator when I heard a voice call to me to wait. I looked up and it was the cute guy that I had noticed. He was holding out an apple to me. He made a show of polishing the apple on his vest before he held it out to me.
"C'mon," he said, "Why don't you at least take an apple with you?"
I said, okay, mentally thinking BREAKFAST TOMORROW!
When I went to grab it, he suddenly held it behind his back.
"Come on back to the green room and share it with me," he said, smiling in a way that must have worked like a charm usually because he looked surprised when I shrugged and kept on walking.
He caught up with me at the elevator and caught my arm.
This time his smile was more genuinely coaxing and less show man.
"One apple?" he asked.
Oh well. Since he asked so prettily.....
So, I went back and helped myself to a sandwich and an orange. And yes, an apple.
He sat next to me. I learned that he was the lead singer and played the guitar. His name was John. Had I heard of Go West?
Before I admitted that I hadn't, Doris piped up in her Minnie Mouse voice that she thought they were all just BITCHEN, TO THE MAX! They ate it up with spoons, smiling hugely, nodding their heads like yeah, we bad, we bitchen...to the MAX!
Except for John. He didn't show any emotion, just offered me a grape, which he popped into my mouth in a friendly way. I watched Doris for a while, foaming at the mouth over the drummer, doing that annoying squealing thing. John stood up and lead me out the door, asking the security guards where he could have a smoke. They showed him out to a small balcony. It was October on the plains, so it was not warm, but not too cold yet either. Well, if you were like me and dressed in a sweater and jeans. But, John remember, had on just his vest and those leather pants.
"Don't go away, okay?" he asked, looking me intently in the eyes. "I'm going to go grab a jacket." I agreed to stay put. When he came back a few moments later, he looked relieved.
"I was afraid you'd be gone," he confessed. I said no and held out my pack of Virginia Slims. He refused and lit up a joint. Now that was more like it. We shared it. He bogarted it a little, but that was okay, it WAS his joint.
He asked me if I'd like to stay backstage and watch the concert. And then maybe we could go out and get a late dinner, maybe drinks or something? As I said, he was cute.
I said okay.
The concert was better than I thought it would be. John was sort of hot, he had a strutting sort of quality that was appealing and the music was good. I wasn't a music expert, but I resolved to ask Bing about them. She knew music a lot better than I did. John seemed to be one of the popular members of the group, several crazed college girls grabbed at his leather clad legs and he smiled down at them. One offered him something in a bottle and he took a long swig and tongued the bottle obscenely before he handed it back to her. She put her tongue on top of where his had been and seemed to nearly swoon. I laughed. What a dick. What a pathetic girl.
I thought about leaving, but then figured that this might be a better way to spend my time tonight. And he had good weed, so there. The decision was made. Life was pretty simple for me back then.
Doris had been invited to watch the show too and she was a dancingspaz queen. She rolled her shoulders back and forth and shimmied back and forth, throwing her head back in abandon a few times, looking more like a demented horse than a college girl. I stood as far apart from her as I could.
John looked over at me occasionally, smiling genially. He was a pretty nice guy, I thought. And not bad looking. I would see what happened next. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.
It was maybe something. After the concert, after the final song was finally done, the guys ran off the stage and I half expected the security guards to tell me to take a hike. They didn't. Instead, John pulled me along with him as they ran back to the green room. He was sweating like a pig and smelled a little bit like one too. I wrinkled my nose when he leaned down to hug me. He laughed.
"I stink don't I? I know I do. Man, it was fun out there tonight! Not bad for a bunch of cattle rustlers...."
There were several waiting cars and John pulled me in one with him. The driver took us back to the hotel. Not one of the fancier ones in my college town, but not a dump either. John led me down the hall, holding fast to my hand. I noticed Doris trailing behind the drummer, looking terrified that he was going to shoo her away. He didn't. They went into his room and after he pulled her in after him, he waggled his eyebrows at John and me and the door shut. I could hear her squealing in there. Good hell. I hoped that John wasn't right next door.
He wasn't. We stood in the small hotel room and he started to strip to his clothes off. I looked away. He laughed again.
"I'm just going to shower, Maria," he told me. "Your maidenly virtue is safe...for now."
I snorted and sat on the bed.
He went into the bathroom and showered and came back out with a towel around his waist. He really did have a nice, albeit hairless chest. He ruffled through his suitcase and went back into the bathroom and came back out dressed in jeans and a tee shirt with a Peter Max design on it. His long hair was slicked back off his face and he looked attractive.
He sat down next to me and took my hand. "We usually gather in our manager, Monty's room for some bong water time after concerts," he told me. "But, I did promise you dinner. Are you hungry?"
I told him I wasn't, really. He asked me if there was a bar I'd like to go to and I said that I knew a few. Did he want to go there? He thought that was a good idea. After telling his manager where he was headed, we set out together, holding hands.
We never made it to the bar. We set off walking to a bar I knew of that was good about letting 20 year olds in. He looked surprised. "How old are you?" he asked. "Please tell me you are 18."
I told him no worries, I was 20. A junior here at the university. How old was he? He didn't answer. Older that that, he finally said.
We passed a park with a swing set, teeter totter and slide and stopped. We went on everything. The air was clear, cool and crisp and the stars were out in force as we swung side by side, his hair even longer than mine and wafting over the ground as we tipped our heads back to pump our legs. It was fun. He stood and took a joint out of his jean jacket pocket and we shared it. It was incredibly smooth weed and I commented on the lushness of it. He said that his manager kept them well supplied. We sat on the merry go round and let our legs push us slowly around as we smoked it down. I was more relaxed than I had been in weeks. This was some good shit.
We talked then, about ourselves. I let him kiss me several times. Kissed back a time or two. I found out small bits about him, that he was originally from Illinois, he was 28 years old. He liked traveling and playing the college circuit, but got sick of his band mates. I told him that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, maybe I would be a doctor, it seemed to be the direction that I was heading. He laughed. Said that I didn't look like the doctor type. I asked him what type I looked like. He gave me a long serious look.
"Like a girl who should travel around with a college band for a while and have some fun," he said, smiling finally.
We kissed then and it was the sort of kiss that has to go somewhere pretty soon. We came up for air and he suggested that we go back to the hotel and I agreed. I wasn't going to go all coy and have to be coaxed. That was how I was back then. If I wanted something, someone, I just took them. I was not really a slut, but then, I guess maybe I was a little bit. I didn't give it away to just anyone. I had to really, really like the person. And I liked John just fine.
We went back to his room and had ourselves a fine time. I remembered to call my dorm to let Bing know not to worry when I didn't come home. There were no cell phones back then, we didn't even have a phone in our room. I left a message with whoever answered our dorm phone. I told them to leave a note on our door for Bing.
The next morning came up all piercing bright sun. John and I lay like a pair of worn socks on the bed, our legs entwined, his golden hair mingling with my darker hair. The bed side phone rang and we both sat up perfectly straight and then looked at each other and laughed. He picked up the phone on the fourth ring while pulling me back down on the bed with him. He mumbled into the receiver and then hung up.
The sun was trying mightily to sneak inside the curtains. John kissed me and our mutual bad breath mingled. He said that was his manager. They were going to stay another night, had he remembered to tell me that? Some rich guy wanted them to play for his daughter's sweet sixteen. Ugh. He groaned a little.
I started to get up and he pulled me back down. Where was I off to? No morning love? I sat on the edge of the bed and let him bite my shoulder and pull me back down with him. When his tongue circled my nipple, I was a believer and we fell into each other again in the way that you can only pull off when you are in your twenties. I look back on that night, and other nights like that and shake my head. God, I was so...nubile, so supple, so pliant. I could never do that shit now. My back would be aching for days.
Afterwards, I went to shower while he smoked a cigarette. When I came out and started searching for my jeans, my sweater, my freakin' undies, he lazily leaned over and pulled my little white panties off of the floor and playfully pulled them over his head.
"I wouldn't mind smelling you forever," he said.
Boys (and girls) used to say things like to me when I was twenty. Now that I'm 51...not so much. Actually, practically never. I just can't see Bing putting my underpants on her head now. Now, I carefully fold my underpants or put them neatly into the hamper before we get down to business. Ah, youth.
Someone knocked on the door and I went to answer it. It was one of John's band mates.
"Hey, Kermie," he said, "I'm supposed to grab you for lunch and then we have to rehearse. Tell your little friend goodbye now."
I looked John and mouthed KERMIE? and snickered.
John shooed his mate away with promises to be downstairs in ten minutes and then he smiled sheepishly at me.
"Okay," he said, "Here's a deep, dark secret. My real name is Kermit. John is my middle name. But, can't be a rock star with the name Kermit, now can I?"
I laughed and agreed that college girls were more likely to throw their bras at a John than a Kermit. He walked me to the door naked.
We kissed goodbye. I didn't expect to see him again, so just wished him well. He casually asked me what I was doing that night and I told him about my job I had at this little Italian restaurant. I dressed up every Saturday night in my Stevie Nicks clothes and read tarot cards at a table with a sign on it that said ASK THE GYPSY. SHE'll TELL YOUR FORTUNE!
He shook his head and grinned. "You are an interesting woman," he said. He pulled me in for another kiss. "And you smell and taste like strawberry ice cream..."
"You boys," I told him. "You are such SAPS."
We said goodbye then. I waved at him as I ran down the hall to go back to my dorm. When I got outside, I was nearly blinded by the sun. When I got back to my dorm, I slept all day.
That night, I went to my gig at the restaurant in my gypsy skirt and peasant blouse. Big jangly earrings. Bright red lipstick. Clattery bracelets. I read tarot cards for a family of four, for a couple on their first date, for a man in a pin striped suit and a woman who was so not his wife. Then I heard a voice say, "So, will I meet the girl of my dreams tonight?"
It was Kermit, I mean John.
When I got off work, we went straight back to his hotel, this time no lollygagging at a park. We got straight to the bong and then straight to the sex.
Afterwards, we found time to talk. I told him that I was surprised at what a gifted lover he was. That I had heard that rock musicians were more of the wham-bang-thank-you-ma'am type. He hooted. And told me that he had heard that farmer's daughters gave great hand jobs because they were used to milking all those cows. We laughed and laughed.
We talked more that night than the previous one. We talked politics, talked about our childhoods, our dreams. He wanted to be so famous that he couldn't walk down the street anymore without fear of being mobbed. I wanted to travel the world.
He jokingly proposed marriage. I told him that I could never marry a man who had prettier hair than mine. As the night was breaking into the dawn, he asked me if I might consider traveling with him for awhile. Nothing serious, mind you. Just...for kicks. We got on so well....
I told him that it might be fun, but um...what about my scholarship? I couldn't just walk away from THAT, could I? And for what? A few months of really good sex with a great guy? Hmmmm. I pretended to consider, but we both knew that I wasn't going to go for it. I told him that I had to stay put and dot my i's and cross my t's. I was a poor girl, after all, working my way through school and I couldn't jeopardize this scholarship. He said he knew that, was just dreaming aloud.
Our parting the next day wasn't all gooey or sentimental. He walked me out to a waiting car where their driver agreed to run me back to my dorm. We kissed goodbye, once, twice, three times. I think I did something totally slutty like reached down and squeezed him between the legs. Just a little squeeze. It was a friendly parting.
Now, I suppose I am supposed to write that he wrote to me. He didn't. I didn't leave him my address or even my dorm room number. I'm not sure I even told him my last name. I didn't follow his band. I can tell you that they never really hit it big, they pretty much stayed with the college circuit. I would have known if I heard their band name on the radio. I never did. Bing told me, when I asked her, that they were not half bad, but nothing that special.
A few months ago, on a whim, I decided to google John. I found out that he married just a few months after we said our goodbyes. Some girl in California. They are still married and have four kids. He got kicked out of Go West (and no, that is not the real name, I challenge some of my musically inclined readers to guess this one) a few years later when his drug use got out of hand. John fronts a Christian band now and is 59 years old. So...he must have cleaned up his habit and came to Jesus. He still has great hair. Still prettier hair than mine. He has the same congenial smile.
I wonder what would have happened if I had taken him up on his offer? Would I be living in California now? Would we have married? Would I be shaking my tambourine for Jesus and wearing tee shirts that say WWJD?
Naw. I think I made the right decision. Neither one of us were that into the other one. Two months after I told him goodbye, he had left my mind completely. I went decades without thinking about him. I imagine it was the same for him. I was just one girl in one port on the prairie. But, still. Interesting to imagine what might have happened...
(Oh...and Doris? I don't know where she is now, but I do know that she graduated with my class and then moved on to grad school in Minnesota. Bing said that she heard that Doris ended up married to some big wig judge. I hope she is happy wherever she is, I hope that she has stopped squealing.)
So, tell me...what is a road that you didn't take and are you glad?
I've been thinking a lot about this shit lately. I think it is just my mood. I feel edgy and reckless, more like a twenty year old than a 51 year old.
So, I was thinking back to when I was twenty, thinking of what choices were offered, what roads beckoned me.
I was a junior in college when I was twenty. When I had the chance to be a rock band groupie. Bing and I were dorm mates. She hung out with a group of very politically active lesbians. I was sort of splayed all over. Literally and figuratively. I hung out with Bing's crowd when I went to the lesbian bars, hung out with a few bookish friends that I had made in various English Lit classes. I dated both men and women and in the late 70's, that was considered pretty wild and crazy. A bong was not a stranger to me. Nor were cigarettes or whiskey. My drink was gin and tonic back then, though, and even though I was underage, it was easy to get it. I made straight A's in order to keep my scholarship, I studied voraciously during the week. But, on the weekends, I was a party girl.
My scholarship paid for my room and books but not my meals so I worked in the cafeteria as a jill-of-all-trades in order to earn my one free meal every day. Sometimes I bussed tables, other times I wore the dreaded hair net and served up the tater tots. Sometimes I helped the cooks. I got one free meal daily and I almost always picked dinner as the freebie. I would load my plate up with an enormous amount of food, always take at least one piece of fruit and rolls and cheese along with the main meal. I would stuff the fruit in my back pack for breakfast the next day and the cheese and rolls for my lunch. I got by.
One Friday morning as I was standing in my hair net, scooping out powdered eggs, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money that evening. I often did this, working as a water pourer at banquets at professor's going away parties, etc. She told me that a rock band was playing that night in the hall and that as part of their contract, the kitchen was to supply them with sandwiches and chips and fruit before the concert. Did I want to haul the food to the back stage area? All I would have to do was take it and set it out on a table and that would be it, I could then disappear.
Sounded like easy money to me. I never went to the concerts. I wasn't a big college band fan so I had no idea who was playing. I agreed to do it.
So, that evening, I was paired with a highly excitable girl named Doris, who was a bouncy girl with a large nose and a voice that didn't fit her physique. On the outside, she looked like a truck driver's moll, but she had this Minnie Mouse voice that just made you have to stop and stare sometimes. Anyway, Doris was beside herself with excitement. She loved this band, adored their music, wanted to meet the band so badly that she was ready to pee her pants. The supervisor led us to a cart loaded up with platters of sandwiches and bags of chips, a huge bowl of fruits of all kinds. She handed us hairnets and sternly instructed us to put them on and KEEP THEM ON UNTIL WE LEFT THE FOOD.
We put them on and then yanked them right back off in the hall on the way to the service elevator when we were out of her sight.
Doris was nearly hyperventilating. She squealed and kept grabbing my arm as if we were going to meet the Stones or something instead of this group called....welll....let's just call them Go West and see if any of you figure it out. When the elevator doors opened to the music hall, she showed me that her teeth were chattering, she was so scared. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
Let's just get this shit over with, so I can get back to the dorm and find a bar to go to. That is what I was thinking. We had each been paid twenty bucks and it was already burning a hole in my pocket.
We found the door back stage and some self important campus security guards were standing at attention. They actually inspected our cart as if we might be smuggling in paparazzi to sneak photos of this unfamous group. They let us in. Doris, of course, tripped and fell and nearly took me and the cart down with her hefty little self, so we made an impression right off the bat.
I kept my head down after showing my id to a manager type looking guy who came forward. I headed towards a table that had already been set up and began placing the food out on it. A group of what I supposed was the band came rushing to the table as if we were bringing lobster and caviar instead of roast beef sandwiches.
"FOOD! The grubs here!" They acted like they hadn't eaten all day. I wondered if, like me, they had to work for their dinners.
Okay...they were all pretty good looking guys. One guy in particular. Remember, this was the 70's so he had on a vest with no shirt and some black leathery pants. His hair was long and wavy. They were friendly guys, invited Doris and I to join them in chowing down the grub. Doris, of course, blushed scarlet and acted like she was invited to eat with Bob Dylan or something. I said thanks and declined and darted for the doors.
I was almost to the elevator when I heard a voice call to me to wait. I looked up and it was the cute guy that I had noticed. He was holding out an apple to me. He made a show of polishing the apple on his vest before he held it out to me.
"C'mon," he said, "Why don't you at least take an apple with you?"
I said, okay, mentally thinking BREAKFAST TOMORROW!
When I went to grab it, he suddenly held it behind his back.
"Come on back to the green room and share it with me," he said, smiling in a way that must have worked like a charm usually because he looked surprised when I shrugged and kept on walking.
He caught up with me at the elevator and caught my arm.
This time his smile was more genuinely coaxing and less show man.
"One apple?" he asked.
Oh well. Since he asked so prettily.....
So, I went back and helped myself to a sandwich and an orange. And yes, an apple.
He sat next to me. I learned that he was the lead singer and played the guitar. His name was John. Had I heard of Go West?
Before I admitted that I hadn't, Doris piped up in her Minnie Mouse voice that she thought they were all just BITCHEN, TO THE MAX! They ate it up with spoons, smiling hugely, nodding their heads like yeah, we bad, we bitchen...to the MAX!
Except for John. He didn't show any emotion, just offered me a grape, which he popped into my mouth in a friendly way. I watched Doris for a while, foaming at the mouth over the drummer, doing that annoying squealing thing. John stood up and lead me out the door, asking the security guards where he could have a smoke. They showed him out to a small balcony. It was October on the plains, so it was not warm, but not too cold yet either. Well, if you were like me and dressed in a sweater and jeans. But, John remember, had on just his vest and those leather pants.
"Don't go away, okay?" he asked, looking me intently in the eyes. "I'm going to go grab a jacket." I agreed to stay put. When he came back a few moments later, he looked relieved.
"I was afraid you'd be gone," he confessed. I said no and held out my pack of Virginia Slims. He refused and lit up a joint. Now that was more like it. We shared it. He bogarted it a little, but that was okay, it WAS his joint.
He asked me if I'd like to stay backstage and watch the concert. And then maybe we could go out and get a late dinner, maybe drinks or something? As I said, he was cute.
I said okay.
The concert was better than I thought it would be. John was sort of hot, he had a strutting sort of quality that was appealing and the music was good. I wasn't a music expert, but I resolved to ask Bing about them. She knew music a lot better than I did. John seemed to be one of the popular members of the group, several crazed college girls grabbed at his leather clad legs and he smiled down at them. One offered him something in a bottle and he took a long swig and tongued the bottle obscenely before he handed it back to her. She put her tongue on top of where his had been and seemed to nearly swoon. I laughed. What a dick. What a pathetic girl.
I thought about leaving, but then figured that this might be a better way to spend my time tonight. And he had good weed, so there. The decision was made. Life was pretty simple for me back then.
Doris had been invited to watch the show too and she was a dancing
John looked over at me occasionally, smiling genially. He was a pretty nice guy, I thought. And not bad looking. I would see what happened next. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.
It was maybe something. After the concert, after the final song was finally done, the guys ran off the stage and I half expected the security guards to tell me to take a hike. They didn't. Instead, John pulled me along with him as they ran back to the green room. He was sweating like a pig and smelled a little bit like one too. I wrinkled my nose when he leaned down to hug me. He laughed.
"I stink don't I? I know I do. Man, it was fun out there tonight! Not bad for a bunch of cattle rustlers...."
There were several waiting cars and John pulled me in one with him. The driver took us back to the hotel. Not one of the fancier ones in my college town, but not a dump either. John led me down the hall, holding fast to my hand. I noticed Doris trailing behind the drummer, looking terrified that he was going to shoo her away. He didn't. They went into his room and after he pulled her in after him, he waggled his eyebrows at John and me and the door shut. I could hear her squealing in there. Good hell. I hoped that John wasn't right next door.
He wasn't. We stood in the small hotel room and he started to strip to his clothes off. I looked away. He laughed again.
"I'm just going to shower, Maria," he told me. "Your maidenly virtue is safe...for now."
I snorted and sat on the bed.
He went into the bathroom and showered and came back out with a towel around his waist. He really did have a nice, albeit hairless chest. He ruffled through his suitcase and went back into the bathroom and came back out dressed in jeans and a tee shirt with a Peter Max design on it. His long hair was slicked back off his face and he looked attractive.
He sat down next to me and took my hand. "We usually gather in our manager, Monty's room for some bong water time after concerts," he told me. "But, I did promise you dinner. Are you hungry?"
I told him I wasn't, really. He asked me if there was a bar I'd like to go to and I said that I knew a few. Did he want to go there? He thought that was a good idea. After telling his manager where he was headed, we set out together, holding hands.
We never made it to the bar. We set off walking to a bar I knew of that was good about letting 20 year olds in. He looked surprised. "How old are you?" he asked. "Please tell me you are 18."
I told him no worries, I was 20. A junior here at the university. How old was he? He didn't answer. Older that that, he finally said.
We passed a park with a swing set, teeter totter and slide and stopped. We went on everything. The air was clear, cool and crisp and the stars were out in force as we swung side by side, his hair even longer than mine and wafting over the ground as we tipped our heads back to pump our legs. It was fun. He stood and took a joint out of his jean jacket pocket and we shared it. It was incredibly smooth weed and I commented on the lushness of it. He said that his manager kept them well supplied. We sat on the merry go round and let our legs push us slowly around as we smoked it down. I was more relaxed than I had been in weeks. This was some good shit.
We talked then, about ourselves. I let him kiss me several times. Kissed back a time or two. I found out small bits about him, that he was originally from Illinois, he was 28 years old. He liked traveling and playing the college circuit, but got sick of his band mates. I told him that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, maybe I would be a doctor, it seemed to be the direction that I was heading. He laughed. Said that I didn't look like the doctor type. I asked him what type I looked like. He gave me a long serious look.
"Like a girl who should travel around with a college band for a while and have some fun," he said, smiling finally.
We kissed then and it was the sort of kiss that has to go somewhere pretty soon. We came up for air and he suggested that we go back to the hotel and I agreed. I wasn't going to go all coy and have to be coaxed. That was how I was back then. If I wanted something, someone, I just took them. I was not really a slut, but then, I guess maybe I was a little bit. I didn't give it away to just anyone. I had to really, really like the person. And I liked John just fine.
We went back to his room and had ourselves a fine time. I remembered to call my dorm to let Bing know not to worry when I didn't come home. There were no cell phones back then, we didn't even have a phone in our room. I left a message with whoever answered our dorm phone. I told them to leave a note on our door for Bing.
The next morning came up all piercing bright sun. John and I lay like a pair of worn socks on the bed, our legs entwined, his golden hair mingling with my darker hair. The bed side phone rang and we both sat up perfectly straight and then looked at each other and laughed. He picked up the phone on the fourth ring while pulling me back down on the bed with him. He mumbled into the receiver and then hung up.
The sun was trying mightily to sneak inside the curtains. John kissed me and our mutual bad breath mingled. He said that was his manager. They were going to stay another night, had he remembered to tell me that? Some rich guy wanted them to play for his daughter's sweet sixteen. Ugh. He groaned a little.
I started to get up and he pulled me back down. Where was I off to? No morning love? I sat on the edge of the bed and let him bite my shoulder and pull me back down with him. When his tongue circled my nipple, I was a believer and we fell into each other again in the way that you can only pull off when you are in your twenties. I look back on that night, and other nights like that and shake my head. God, I was so...nubile, so supple, so pliant. I could never do that shit now. My back would be aching for days.
Afterwards, I went to shower while he smoked a cigarette. When I came out and started searching for my jeans, my sweater, my freakin' undies, he lazily leaned over and pulled my little white panties off of the floor and playfully pulled them over his head.
"I wouldn't mind smelling you forever," he said.
Boys (and girls) used to say things like to me when I was twenty. Now that I'm 51...not so much. Actually, practically never. I just can't see Bing putting my underpants on her head now. Now, I carefully fold my underpants or put them neatly into the hamper before we get down to business. Ah, youth.
Someone knocked on the door and I went to answer it. It was one of John's band mates.
"Hey, Kermie," he said, "I'm supposed to grab you for lunch and then we have to rehearse. Tell your little friend goodbye now."
I looked John and mouthed KERMIE? and snickered.
John shooed his mate away with promises to be downstairs in ten minutes and then he smiled sheepishly at me.
"Okay," he said, "Here's a deep, dark secret. My real name is Kermit. John is my middle name. But, can't be a rock star with the name Kermit, now can I?"
I laughed and agreed that college girls were more likely to throw their bras at a John than a Kermit. He walked me to the door naked.
We kissed goodbye. I didn't expect to see him again, so just wished him well. He casually asked me what I was doing that night and I told him about my job I had at this little Italian restaurant. I dressed up every Saturday night in my Stevie Nicks clothes and read tarot cards at a table with a sign on it that said ASK THE GYPSY. SHE'll TELL YOUR FORTUNE!
He shook his head and grinned. "You are an interesting woman," he said. He pulled me in for another kiss. "And you smell and taste like strawberry ice cream..."
"You boys," I told him. "You are such SAPS."
We said goodbye then. I waved at him as I ran down the hall to go back to my dorm. When I got outside, I was nearly blinded by the sun. When I got back to my dorm, I slept all day.
That night, I went to my gig at the restaurant in my gypsy skirt and peasant blouse. Big jangly earrings. Bright red lipstick. Clattery bracelets. I read tarot cards for a family of four, for a couple on their first date, for a man in a pin striped suit and a woman who was so not his wife. Then I heard a voice say, "So, will I meet the girl of my dreams tonight?"
It was Kermit, I mean John.
When I got off work, we went straight back to his hotel, this time no lollygagging at a park. We got straight to the bong and then straight to the sex.
Afterwards, we found time to talk. I told him that I was surprised at what a gifted lover he was. That I had heard that rock musicians were more of the wham-bang-thank-you-ma'am type. He hooted. And told me that he had heard that farmer's daughters gave great hand jobs because they were used to milking all those cows. We laughed and laughed.
We talked more that night than the previous one. We talked politics, talked about our childhoods, our dreams. He wanted to be so famous that he couldn't walk down the street anymore without fear of being mobbed. I wanted to travel the world.
He jokingly proposed marriage. I told him that I could never marry a man who had prettier hair than mine. As the night was breaking into the dawn, he asked me if I might consider traveling with him for awhile. Nothing serious, mind you. Just...for kicks. We got on so well....
I told him that it might be fun, but um...what about my scholarship? I couldn't just walk away from THAT, could I? And for what? A few months of really good sex with a great guy? Hmmmm. I pretended to consider, but we both knew that I wasn't going to go for it. I told him that I had to stay put and dot my i's and cross my t's. I was a poor girl, after all, working my way through school and I couldn't jeopardize this scholarship. He said he knew that, was just dreaming aloud.
Our parting the next day wasn't all gooey or sentimental. He walked me out to a waiting car where their driver agreed to run me back to my dorm. We kissed goodbye, once, twice, three times. I think I did something totally slutty like reached down and squeezed him between the legs. Just a little squeeze. It was a friendly parting.
Now, I suppose I am supposed to write that he wrote to me. He didn't. I didn't leave him my address or even my dorm room number. I'm not sure I even told him my last name. I didn't follow his band. I can tell you that they never really hit it big, they pretty much stayed with the college circuit. I would have known if I heard their band name on the radio. I never did. Bing told me, when I asked her, that they were not half bad, but nothing that special.
A few months ago, on a whim, I decided to google John. I found out that he married just a few months after we said our goodbyes. Some girl in California. They are still married and have four kids. He got kicked out of Go West (and no, that is not the real name, I challenge some of my musically inclined readers to guess this one) a few years later when his drug use got out of hand. John fronts a Christian band now and is 59 years old. So...he must have cleaned up his habit and came to Jesus. He still has great hair. Still prettier hair than mine. He has the same congenial smile.
I wonder what would have happened if I had taken him up on his offer? Would I be living in California now? Would we have married? Would I be shaking my tambourine for Jesus and wearing tee shirts that say WWJD?
Naw. I think I made the right decision. Neither one of us were that into the other one. Two months after I told him goodbye, he had left my mind completely. I went decades without thinking about him. I imagine it was the same for him. I was just one girl in one port on the prairie. But, still. Interesting to imagine what might have happened...
(Oh...and Doris? I don't know where she is now, but I do know that she graduated with my class and then moved on to grad school in Minnesota. Bing said that she heard that Doris ended up married to some big wig judge. I hope she is happy wherever she is, I hope that she has stopped squealing.)
So, tell me...what is a road that you didn't take and are you glad?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)