Periodically Consistent

In Other News...

2009-11-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

This must be a couple years old, but since my brain doesn't cooperate with creativity these days, I'd thought I'd post something long-forgotten and completely irrelevant.

In other news

I attempt to read the newspaper every weekday morning. Well…at least the first section. I’ve tried reading the local page, but since it seems to have the odd affect of neutralizing my morning coffee, I have given it up. I often peruse the classifieds quickly, ensuring that I am not missing out on greener grass, or off-street parking, but I am almost always left with the sickening reality that I live in a place completely devoid of opportunity, prosperity, and single females over 30 who aren’t advertising for a man.

However, lately I’ve taken to the habit of skipping almost everything. I refuse to read anything with “Suicide” or “1## People Killed”. I regret that I don’t seem to care who is ruling Northern Ireland, or how much the euro is worth in dollars.

So, I make up my own news. It’s much more interesting, and while not factual for the most part, is in my eyes, a decent example of why creative humor-journalism could save lives and end wars. Afterall - doesn't a spoonful of sugar help the anti-psychotic pain-killing happy pill go down?.

Today’s News A la Jessica:

Los Angeles, CA – Paris Hilton has been pardoned by Governor Schwarzenegger today after promising him retribution in the form of a series of sex tapes starring herself, Nicole Richie and Justin Timberlake. Hilton’s newly fired-rehired publicist, Elliot Mintz was quoted as saying, “Everyone makes mistakes. Paris is excited about performing this community service and helping to bring sexy back to the mundane lives of the general public.”

The pardon has catapulted petitiononline’s “Sick of Paris Hilton Petition” into the Most-visited website off all time.

Atlanta, GA – As Northside Hospital, long touted as the East Coast’s most voluminous “Baby-Delivery hospital, prepares for the largest baby boom since World War II ended, parent’s across the nation are making OB appointments for their post-prom teenage daughters. Once thought a mere myth, the “Prom Baby” phenomenon is expected to drop female College entrance rates by over 50%, single-handedly rebuilding the glass-ceiling and throwing the United States into a June Cleaver-like state, mirroring the 1950’s, and making the common housewife the largest growing career over the next decade.

The term “Prom Baby” has also been added to Wikipedia in an attempt to educate teen girls, and discredit the theory that “ignorance is bliss”.

“A prom baby is a child conceived on the night of its mother's senior prom, particularly a child conceived deliberately as a means for its mother to avoid the actual or perceived pressures of attending college.[1]”

Crawford,TX – President Bush, said in a press conference held today impromptu from his Prairie Chapel Ranch, that he will not fight with Congress over a timetable for bringing troops back from Iraq. Eliciting little applause from the gathering, he stated they would continue their efforts overseas “until the cows come home”.

Washington DC – The National Weather Service reported today that what were thought to be severe non-precipitating thunderstorms across the northeast last night were actually the disproportionately large thighs of a woman in the western part of Massachusetts, which have grown overnight to such proportions that people all across the New England states were awakened by a late night trip to the bathroom. No further details were given.

Boston, MA – Jessica Jones, would-be renowned blogger and head of a Massachusetts Lobbying Organization called “American’s for a Tomato Free Pasta Salad”, meet with state officials to jump-start a campaign for legislation outlawing the use of fresh-diced tomatoes in pasta salads. She cited the practice as “yucky” and will be traveling the state speaking against the evils of seed-filled rotini.

I Can Resist Everything...But Temptation

2009-02-27T10:06:00.000-08:00

(Written for MS!)

It’s been almost 2 years since I posted my first blog about smoking cessation. I’ve tried to quit once since then, with the “miracle drug” Chantix – which has since been proven to cause death, which in my mind is worse than most side effects of smoking. Otherwise – I have gone about my stink-cloud business, and managed to continue smoking without selling any of my kids to support the insanely ridiculous Taxachusetts state treasury.

But its time again. Not because I am less willing to spend half of my take home pay on my own pleasure, and not because I no longer wish to age rapidly, dehydrate easily, or fill my lungs with enough tar to repave the Autobahn. I can’t even say it’s because I am ready to quit.

The hospital I where I spend most of my waking hours earning a paycheck is going “Smoke Free” as of March 1st, and oh, have they gone all out to communicate this to its staff, patients and flower delivery guys. There have been tent cards on the cafeteria tables for months. There have been memo’s enough to ensure an entire square mile of the rainforest is now gone. They have distributed their wretched offers of free cessation counseling and have given us an aerial view of what is included in “the campus” that cordons off about half the city.

In any case – most of the smokers have spent their recent smoke breaks in a rage about the whole thing, while squeezing into a tiny little piece of muddy/icy lawn across from the main building equipped with several butt receptacles and “Thank you for not smoking” signs. There’s a huge sandwich board that’s been counting down the days for us just as you walk back in. I hear rumblings of strikes and smoke-ins and burning the head honcho in effigy with a six-foot Bic.

But I am calm. I am a pinnacle of tranquility. I am a fortress of I-don’t-give-a –fuckedness.

Smokes are going up another 75 cents in April – and shelling out almost eight bucks a pack just isn’t going to work for me. The entire state seems to be against us. Before long, I expect a prohibition-style denial of ALL my rights wherein everything I like to do will become illegal. I’ll be one bitchy, smoke and alcohol free, internet-deprived, asexual cunt with plenty of spare moola and decaf coffee.

In preparation for all this, I pulled up the MYSPACE BUTT OUT blogs from August 2007, and was going to repost them. My buddy ISIS and I had a great list of tips for quitting, and we had fun banging our heads against the wall of nicotine for half a minute. But, I read through them, decided the whole thing was a crock of shit, and revised them a bit – which had to be done quickly, because it was almost time for a smoke break.

How To Be A Quitter....

Oral fixation: If you don’t have a man, find one. If you ARE a man, get a Slim Jim – and be realistic – the short ones that don’t last long are best. Gum, candy and lozenges are useless.
Planned weaning: Cold turkey is impossible for most people. Set a date. Preferably after you’ve been to a good psychic and have confirmed your expiration date. Chose that date and mark it on your calendar. Nothing like waiting till the last minute.

List the benefits of quitting and post them in places you are most often, your desk, your bedpost:
a. Longer life
b. More energy
c. More money (and what you will do with it)
d. Less friends to muddle up your schedule, since the only ones that will be left are the ones that quit smoking with you, and are just as miserable

Persistence: If you break down and have a cig remember that quitters never win and winners never quit. I’m a winner, what are you?

Proclaim yourself a non-smoker from day one. And then sneak behind the nearest Starbucks and light one up. Quitters never lie either, but winners do.

Meditate: The calming factor of slow, deliberate breathing and trying to clear your mind of the frustration may help get you through the rough spots. If you do this with a lit Marlboro, you get twice the results.

REINVENT and REDIRECT: Reinvent your routine – smoking goes well with meals, coffee, beer, and sex. People who are trying to quit may need to avoid these and form other routines while quitting. The people that do this, however, will be deleted from my Friends List.

Exercise: "Your body is much less apt to fire up those smoking addiction synapses when it is caught up in firing off those "Oh my God, I need oxygen badly" synapses. For me – oxygen is farther down on my addiction list than nicotine, so I’d never hear my body telling me that over the screams for a puff in my head.

Nicotine replacement and other medications: Assuming you don’t have an addiction to the oral or mental aspects, drugs are the obvious choice. And now that marijuana has been decriminalized in MA, it gets my vote for first choice.

Tell EVERYONE: Nothing is better than a supportive group of friends when you lay crumpled under your desk, blubbering like a school girl who lost her glitter pens. Their laughter will undoubtedly cheer you better than a smoke ever could, and one of them is likely to have a menthol in their pocket.

Get SICK: I cannot tell you how many people have said they quit because they were sick, and couldn't smoke without puking/coughing up a lung/passing out. Besides, it’s job security for me.

Get pregnant: Okay….so this one doesn't actually save you money and often has the opposite effect on men, but I can totally see myself telling some well-chosen one-night stand that I only need him for one night because I’m trying to quit smoking.

Anyone want to join me?

“Remember, if you’re smoking after sex, you’re doing it too fast”
– Woody Allen

A Hard Man is Good to Find

2009-02-19T12:28:00.000-08:00

There are times when my fellowette women make me want to slap the everlovin estrogen out of them. They can be the most frustratingly delusional, self-destructive group of inherently lovely people in any given herd of nuts and crazies. I love my girlfriends wholeheartedly, and long ago realized that a loyal heart does not fill its loved ones with lies and garbage, but finds the most tactful and reasonable way to say what must be said.

So this morning, I sit and listen to my friend/office mate unquietly declare to the asshole that only yesterday was “gone from her life”, that she was leaving work early because “we need to talk”. I have used this ridiculously ineffective phrase in the distant past, and I can hear those days in the very screech of her voice when she talks to this guy, who she played the hang-up/redial game with for almost an hour.

She’s been going through the basic chick crap with this full-fledged “bad boy” for quite a while, and her frustration with him has recently escalated. Apparently she is not delighted by his continued relationship with an ex, constant drunkenness, or inability to make plans to do stuff with her. I’m only guessing that he has won her heart with his gallant shows of indifference, and endeared her with his transparent barrel of lies.

It happens all the freakin time. “But he says he LOVES me”.

I cannot tell you how often I find myself in the position whereby I must decide whether to give my no-holds-barred honest opinion or sugar coat the picture as seen from the outside. I’ve almost lost friends over the truth. Many people prefer a little white lie, that usually turns gray and then black before the whole thing resembles gangrene and requires amputation.

Don’t get me wrong. There have been moments where my pride was so damaged by a man that I flung words at him like stones at a glass house. But in general, I walk away, disgusted with myself for meandering in meaninglessness and angry that I didnt see it sooner.

So I get pissy about the sissy shit. (Pissy…sissy….I like that…) I WANT to be supportive. I will gladly let a friend spill their woes, cry on my shoulder, and if they're a very good friend, I may even let them wipe their runny nose on my sleeve. But I refuse to feed the lies they tell themselves. I will not be a party to the fantasy-like nightmare they are obsessed with. From now on, I will silently hand them a little red laminated card with my wise and unforgiving…

“Rules to Rid Yourself of Misery”

Three Strike Rule: Men can relate to the number three. Most of them have at least three fingers, they can usually add, subtract and multiply by threes, and they all know what three strikes gets you. If you call three times, and he hasn’t responded – he’s out. If you invite him to three non-sex related activities and he declines them all – he’s out. If he has two other girlfriends and you’re the third – he’s out. If he wanted to do any of those things, he would’ve done so already.

Sticks and Stones Rule: The first clue that he really doesn’t give a crap about you, having been ignored, is sometimes reiterated with a round of flying fists and/or “you stupid, stinky, cuntbomb” – which some women obviously interpret as “I really love you or I wouldn’t care enough to want to hit you/make you sink into the pitiful depths of humiliation”. There are no circumstances I can think of to excuse this, unless what he says is accurate to a fault, and if you are indeed a stupid, stinky cuntbomb, please shower and then cook the man dinner to apologize. If he talks with his fists, and you repeatedly tell yourself that it’ll never happen again, you should be flogged daily in the center of town, and have your wounds dressed with vinegar.

Truth or Dare: He says he was in a meeting, but your friend saw him lunching at the diner with a chick. He says he was talking to his mother in the other room, but you could swear you heard him say “sexy-ass” in the conversation. He “fell asleep” on his friends couch and didn’t wake up til just now, so he couldn’t call to tell you he wouldn’t be home. Basically – if you think he’s lying, he probably is. And if you realize he’s making you feel “crazy” or “paranoid” – you probably aren’t. He’s a liar. A fibber. A story-teller of idiotic proportions.

The Game of Concentration: You’re out to dinner and he excuses himself more than once to answer his cell phone. He texts you often, but never answers when you call. You never speak to him between the time he gets home from work and the time he leaves for work the next day. Mondays, Saturdays, Sundays and Thursdays are off limits for making plans, and its not even football season. Honey – either he is spreading his focus around, or he doesn’t like you enough to concentrate on you. Either way, it is not likely to change. If he has a lot on his plate, but you’re not the main dish – you never will be.

Blame Game: No matter what he did to piss you off, you end up apologizing and offering endless foot rubs if he’ll only forgive you. He says you’re pushing him away with your nagging. He says he didn’t call to cancel because he knew you’d be upset and he’s too stressed as it is. He couldn’t help finishing in under 5 minutes because you’re so damned good. Bitch please. He’s eating cake and blaming you for the weight gain. If you constantly get the eerie feeling that you’ve been duped – you have. He doesn’t give one iota about you.

The Game of Life: If he says any of the following things, just go. He’s not confused, he’s not going to “get past it” with you, and he’s not going to change his mind: “I need space” – “I need time” – “We’re (he and the ex, not YOU) trying to work things out” - “There’s someone else” – “I’m gay” – “She’s just a friend” – “You’re a needy-ass limp-lay, crazy bitch and I’m getting a restraining order”.

Butchering the Best

2009-02-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

I love my morning show. Complete asses - just like me.

Enjoy Jason Mraz and bodily function fans!

Doin It Discovery Channel Style

2009-02-17T06:02:00.000-08:00

I have no educated opinions on this matter, unless you include some blundering of my own that, as a result, has lead me to some slightly unscientific - though often interesting - conclusions.
I say this – because the thought occurred to me the other day, while getting bored enough eating my cereal, when the current paper had not yet hit the doorstep and I was forced to read Dear Abbey, that maybe her advice could be misconstrued by some less forward thinking folk. Maybe someone would take her advice badly, and do something rash, reinforcing my instinct not to give too much “fuck'em” advice.

I wouldn’t want my friends out there screwing the very target of my statement, after all.
Sex is an instinct.

No matter how hard we try to mangle it with our morals and judgments and insecurities – it is still something born within every one of us. We are meant to find or attract the most suitable mate and procreate until our species is ensured survival (or taking over and destroying the planet with carbon-emitting machines). And I know, being raised Catholic that if my deeds had not already insured my expulsion from up above, then that statement surely would.
Whatever – I am always goin a’coveting – so I might as well make it good.

As parents, we bring our kids up with some antiquated ideals about love, marriage and sex. We give them the pretty picture, and never tell them what to do when Tom cheats, or Bill rapes, or Ted tells you you’re a fat-assed loser with nothing to claim but dirty laundry. We make them think that their urges are unnatural and immoral and will get them a one way ticket to The Sunburn Festival downstairs. It’s wrong to want. It’s wrong to lust. It’s wrong to stick a pee-pee in your mouth - much less ENJOY it being there.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH - NO!

HeLLO people.

Except in extraordinary circumstances, where children are given inside information before their brains can properly process said information, sex is exactly what we’re wired to do. (And, though my thesis was not on molestation in animals, because I have no masters, I have not ONCE heard mention of wild animals raping/sodomizing/molesting in nature – that’s a human venture).

So, you lust for the girl in line in front of you at Wendy’s, cause her ass is plump as a peach on a Georgia tree, well HELL man, the boner is nothing to be ashamed of. Fuck'er!

And ladies – the guy in the office down the hall with the strong looking hands and piecing gaze? Um hum – if you were a lioness – you’d be parading your ripe ass in his face until he took a sniff and pounced! Woman - fuck'im!

It’s like breathing and eating and writing a resume. It’s like takin a shit with less e-coli. It’s natural. It’s what we’re supposed to do.

So what the hell is everyone so uptight about?

Wait. I just gave "Fuck'em advice, didnt I?

Crap - nevermind!

Oldie But Goodie: Valentine Topic Extraordinaire

2009-02-13T12:56:00.000-08:00

Every year I stress over this damn man. I prepare for the visit, lay awake thinking about it, and go through horrific rituals to make myself acceptable. And yet, every year I breathe a sigh of relief that he only takes minutes and it's over. (He's the only one that can get away with that.)
So I got up early, showered, scrubbed, shaved, powdered, lotioned and preened until I felt as fresh and flowery as a freakin Easter morning. I would see him early enough to be relatively unsullied, though I wished it were first thing, before I had a chance to sweat or mud wrestle or anything.

What I did NOT plan on was the untimely need to take a dump.

Mind you, I won't go into details about THAT, except to say it was your average dump, and nothing to think twice about on a normal day. If it weren't for my unreasonable OCD-like qualities and an excessive fear of inadequate wiping (followed by the infamous "shit-stain") – the moment would've past unnoticed.

However – in less than an hour – a man would be thoroughly examining my crotch, and the last thing I wanted was for him to know that I was the one that stunk up the work bathroom today.
So, as I undressed in the exam room, awaiting his impending invasion, I grabbed a couple wipes from the bottle of Wet Ones on the counter, and just to make sure I was pristine in all areas, gave myself a quick once-over, chucking the wipes in the biological waste basket when I finished.

As I washed my hands, I noticed a little tingling between the butt cheeks. Within seconds….the tingling was more like burning…and then altogether anal combustion. Dancing and squirming to the counter, I picked up the wet ones, only to realize they were not what I thought. Apparently, the nurses thought it would be funny to stick the sanitizing crap they use on the "equipment" and hard surfaces on the counter, where anybody could easily mistake them for Baby Fresh scented wipies. However – the sign of the baby's bottom with a big X through was not obvious until I investigated the container, whining slightly from the bonfire that was my ass.

Panicking slightly, I threw it back on the devil's counter, and yanked a handful of paper towels from dispenser, ran them under the faucet, and slid them between my buttocks. I washed my hands again, forced back tears, and got some more to dry off with.

Only by the grace of God and The Quicker Picker Upper did I manage to calm down and slide on my mask of innocence when Doc arrived. I was nervous that he'd noticed the redness, and inquire as to what I was doing that would irritate my bunghole so dreadfully. Or that the strong chemical odor would tip him off that I was a little loopy.

I managed however to distract him with my wit, and insistence that I was exempt from breast self-exams because any growth would be clearly visible to the naked eye. Everything went smoothly, and I have gladly made it another year without somehow impregnating myself.

Maybe next year, I'll just skip the shaving part, and assume the hair will cover any leftovers I missed. My advice to you?

Make sure if you stick something in your butt – you read the label first.

Ta Da.

Trivial Pursuit

2009-02-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

I do this all the time, which is why I often have the kind of dizzy, hang-over like headache you experience after riding a loopy roller coaster a dozen times in a row, just because there’s no line. Granted, I may also have a hang over, but I’m almost positive that’s not where the feeling comes from. I ride the waves of my emotions up and down until, lulled nearly into a complete cataleptic-like sleep-state, I am awakened by the sting of salt on wounds from the constant pecking of prolific little scavengers in the water who thought I was dead. I go along for a while, not feeling much, not caring that my life isn’t really what I want it to be. I do my job. I tend to the children. I shower, and eat and smile at the passers by. I drive to work, and feel good that I only hit half of the potholes.

And then it comes rushing back. The longing for more, and the self-reproach for not being happy with what I have. The health of myself, my kids, my parents, and their love to boot. I have a stable job, a roof over my head, and money to fill it with skin-drying heat. I can feed the mouths that open wide when mommy birds returns to the nest, and I can put a new paid of cleats on their feet when a new season of baseball starts. We’re not in any unreasonable amount of danger from car bombs, or government overthrows, or lack of reality TV.

Why does happiness come so easily for some people? Its like they were blessed with a gift for taking things in stride, and seeing light where other’s would scramble around in the dark, screaming for a match. Is it an act? Are some people just better at hiding discontent – or is it something in our genetic make-up that can be altered by the scientific method? Is there an answer to finding happiness?

I think about this a lot. What I need to make me happy. And while I’m not sure I’m even in the right ballpark with my brainstorming for ideas – I do have a pretty good list of things others seem to think will make it all better - but aren’t the answer for me.

Money will never make me happy. And while money can cloth me in finery and make me into something fashionable and chic – no pair of Dolce & Gabbanas can ever warm my heart or give me love, even if they don’t blister my feet. Granted, I can think of many things I want, that cost money I don’t have, and that would probably move me closer to a happy place. Education. Car repairs. A dishwasher that doesn’t leak. Professional hair stylist. But in the end, being wrapped in warmth and radiance cannot be bought at the Clinque counter in Macy's.

And no other person can ensure my happiness. No matter how much I love my children, and my parents and friends – not one of them is responsible for creating my ideals, changing my mood, or accomplishing my goals. None of them can crawl into the holes I dig inside myself, where I store the emotions like nuts in the fall. Not one person can hold me til the day I die and never get up to pee. It’s just unreasonable to expect happiness to depend 100% on another human being, and to think that they will be the same forever. People that expect "the one" to make them happy for all of their days, is the person who is hit hardest by death, divorce and their own reflection in the mirror.

Chocolate does not make me happy. Wine provides only momentary desenstizing. Sex was a momentary band aid, and one that peel off in the bathtub long ago. I could go on, but the list of Non-Answers is long. But I'm beginning to think I should’ve started with a definition.

The All New Dating Game

2009-02-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

It’s funny, but dating doesn’t mean much to me these days. And to be fair, it’s not just that this tiny little wannabe-city doesn’t afford much opportunity to meet people, and even if it did, most of them already have a wife/girlfriend/drug problem. I just don’t have time to devote to getting to know someone, and I can’t see myself making too much time for someone I don’t know. Add that to having a few active kids, a mother that lives in the same house, and a general lack of interest – and you have a basically date-free situation.

But – because I am an avid people watcher (in a totally non-invasive, non-voyeurism kind of way of course) – I was considering a social experiment. Having been on MySpace for a couple years, and never with the intention of dating, I have still managed to get a good feel for the social aspect. You can find a little bit of everything there. The Spacers run the gamut from truly interesting and creative people to completely psychotic idiots with very little to say that doesn’t come from the lyrics of 50 Cent’s Magic Stick. (Go look them up, dorks – better yet, ask your 17 year old).

So, I was thinking I’d get a second job long enough to pay for memberships at eHarmony, Match.com and Chemistry.com. If they’re anything like MySpace, I’ll photoshop a good profile pic, and then randomly draw a birthday out of a hat, just hoping I don’t have to be 19 or 99. Or maybe I’ll find a really good old photo of Audrey Hepburn and pretend I photoshopped it to give it that old look.

My about me section should definitely sell me like the fine, barely-used goods I am. I keep trying to think of what Paris would say if she were talking about herself – after all, who else can market non-talent well enough to get her own record deal, tv show, and fanatical following? Something along the lines of “ I love long walks on the beach, small dogs that fit in my purse, and making sex tapes you can sell when we break up”.

My hometown has to be something romantic, and yet geared towards men. Maybe Daytona or Detroit, or even Pittsburgh - to take advantage of the Super Bowl hype and win the sports-lover vote.

And I’m totally lying about my kids. I thought I’d just say they’re my siblings, and that I like to help my poor, birth-control-impaired mother because she’s such a sad case. You know, I had to quit school when I was 17 so I could work to support my sisters and brothers, and had to walk to work uphill, ten miles, in the snow.

Or how about this? “I am searching for Mr. Right. Someone who doesn’t talk too much, watches me clean house from the couch, and doesn’t mind if I clean it in the nude. I like men who like beer, and love the challenge of changing myself to suit their needs. Loves dogs, and doesn’t mind fleas. Can fish, hunt, throw like a boy, and scale a slippery pole wearing only thongs and high heels.”

I really don’t think these things are SO far from the truth that I can’t pull it off. I can hook one first, so I don’t have to waste time “getting to know them”. I can string them along with emails and texts and 5 minute chats.
The fact is, online dating is perfect for how I feel right now….like sitting on the couch for an indeterminable amount of time, wearing sweats and a ponytail, gaining weight and growing another chin. I can be who I want to be, while still portraying what I want prospective ex’s to see. It’s perfect.

I can't imagine why online dating isn't more popular!

Mind, Body & Soul: Part 2: Issued First (Just to throw you off)

2009-01-28T17:03:00.000-08:00

It doesn’t matter how much I try to deny it, or make it go away. Common sense and the natural cravings that are only human cannot dispense with the yearning. Make believe and women’s lib and my Grandma’s womb-like love do not shed light on the mysteries of its draw.

And I’m not alone. (And my Grandma smells like fried chicken)

I am a cow. Moo-freakin-ooooooo. Aside from the fact that I have actually produced “milk” before, and I have a couple long, saggy, once-life-giving udders, I am a cow in other ways.

I think because I was a chubby kid, and “healthy” pre-teen, the fact that I naturally grew out of the extra weight means very little. The mirror still says the same thing, and it’s not berating me for being too stupid, or less successful than I should be. While my abbreviated education and lack-luster career are constant fodder for new (or renewed) goals, it is my body that receives the brunt of whatever self-inflicted condemnation I issue forth. I want to be happy with the imperfections, and yet every time I see my reflection – whenever I see myself - it is not my lack of political awareness, or inadequacy when playing Trivial Pursuit or watching Cash Cab that I regret most.

Though I do regret those things immensely.

I mean, I freakin love Cash Cab. I intend to go to NYC in April with no other object than to roam the streets looking for it. I imagine myself flagging down crossover-looking cabs, and saying “Oops, sorry – I forgot my wallet” or acting as though I was flagging it for the less ambitious sap behind me. Not the point - you can never have enough pointless trivia on the tip of your tongue in a city that overwhlems every other sense.

At some point in high school, basically from my junior year on – I was 125 lbs. At 5’9” that was enough to make a few people ask if I had an eating disorder, which was entirely the opposite of the truth. I had gained control. After a teen pregnancy during which I’d gained almost 60 lbs, my weight was a perfection of healthy eating, diligent exercise, and mind over matter. And up until my last was born just under three years ago – I maintained that standard - or close to it, even going vegetarian for a couple years to ensure the goodness I was putting into my body (as long as you consider alcohol “good”).

So after 14 years, and the birth of my third child (22 lbs gained) – I was "acceptable" - but no better in my own eyes, at least when my eyes were directed towards a scale. But for the last year or so, having somewhat conquered a slight bout of depression – and celebrating with a year long (or slightly more) 2-glass-of-wine-a-night binge, I seem to be packing on the pounds, one nasty, jiggly ounce at a time. I know in my less-than-shallow mind that its not all that serious yet. But, childhood promises that I would be JUST like Jane Fonda (without Ted and money) riddle my thoughts and dreams – torturing me with visions of a large ass you can place your dinner plate on and thighs that could serve as a compactor at the local junkyard. I haven’t had time for the gym in two months, unless giving up minimal parenting is an option – and eating has become less of a discipline and more of a whatever’s-there kind of thing.

So, I will never look at myself and see what other’s see. But then again, I am not other people. And for the most part, I don’t give a starving rats ass what people think about my cellulite. I don’t (really) want to be Heidi Klum, and I don’t need to be the devil in Prada. I don’t even need to have my own DVD of pole-dancing, love-handle-taming fabulousness (but it could happen).

I just need to please me (and maybe Raquel Welch), and there’s no better time to begin………..than tomorrow (says Scarlet anyway).

Whirly Twirly Mental Manic Aggressive

2009-01-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

Those Nationwide commercials are right. I pay attention to them mainly because I am still angsty over the big insurance companies not covering in Massachusetts, causing me the horrific experience of having to switch companies when I moved here from Georgia. In fact, I was with Allstate there, and had every intention of keeping them, if for no other reason than I like the deep-voiced guy that does their commercials. Beats the hell out of a talking lizard, in three out of four taste tests anyway. Besides, deep down….really, really deep down – I want to be in good hands.

Back to the point.

“Life comes at you fast.”

I haven’t posted a blog in over a month. Is it because I have been writing so many quality blogs that I can’t decide which one to post first? Is it because I’ve been reduced to writing with paper and pen because all computer manufacturers have also decided Massachusetts is a bitch and stopped selling them here? Is it because I fell down in my driveway whilst shoveling 2000 cubic feet of lead-like snow and broke both my hands, forcing me to “write” in my hand-held minute-taking recorder from work?

Nay.

I have been so swamped with year-end number-crunching, mess-cleaning chaos, sprinkled heavily with basketball games and bedtime wino-moments – I have barely noticed December is over and it’s nearing the end of January. I find solace in the fact that the hoity-toity holiday dinner and the hoopla of a department-wide party for a couple hundred coworkers is over. But I kind of feel like the 31st is the day I’ve been scheduled for execution, and only an unlikely stay will save me from sure numeric destruction.

In fact, I am sitting here now, having had the intention to leave work today, not bring the spreadsheets with me, and buy a couple new games (the board kind, not the PS2 kind) to play with my mom and the kids - a family game night having happened exactly twice in the past year or so. I was thinking Candy Land for the toddler so she'll stop stealing the pieces to whatever the rest of us are playing cause she's left out, or maybe that apple picking one. Or is it cherries?

But - turns out the Mother made plans with the Grandmother for dinner, my son went to a school dance with his friends, and my teen daughter is at the mall (with whom and for what reason, still unknown). So I skipped the toy store, hit the liquor store, and sit here in the near-quiet as my toddler watches Noggin while using approximately 237 wipes to clean the living room.

So let's talk about the toddler.

While she drives me insane with her mini-me tendencies, including gobs of sarcasm and a super-sweet little princess delivery – she is the one who will make me proud. Having been an avid Obama supporter, I am delighted that not only can she name the President when asked (she’ll be three in March - and learned this just this week), but she also refers to him as her “Best Buddy”. She has taken possession of my small Obama tote bag, and takes it to the sitters everyday, choc-full of her hair ties, nail polish, sippy cup and sparkly princess shoes – sometimes varying by leaving the shoes and adding a doll and fuzzy blanket. She proudly grabs the woven red straps and announces "Mommy, I've got my Beeer-ROCK O-Baaaama bag" - and heads for the door.

If you knew how unprissy the rest of us are, you’d question if her bio-father was really an undercover closeted Californian ballerina too.

Anyway - last night she laid in bed with me, where we retired to early, my patience thinning and brain like lifeless granite - shiney-flecs but no function. I poured myself a glass of wine from a bottle given to me by some coworkers for the effort I put in to last weeks party, and snuggled under the covers, hoping she’d fall asleep quickly. Two seconds later, she flings herself over me to get her juice, knocking over my freshly poured glass (pink plastic cup) of cabernet, sending the lovely red contents into torrents of staining rain, covering the wall, side of the bed, and nasty off-white carpet.

My blood boiled, and I glared at her, ready to spout off threats of NO nail polish, Dora or fruit snacks for the NEXT TEN YEARS – when I realized she was shaking….waiting for me to spank her “goose bottom” or “pinochle-butt”. I stood rigid and tried counting to ten. I tried shaking my fists in the air to rid myself of the anger. I cursed my uterus and cell division for ruining my life (and pink cup of wine). And then I looked at her again.

She was smiling.

I swear, somewhere deep down inside she knew I wouldn’t spank her for it. It’s as if she knows its just plain wrong to beat your kid for wasting your booze.

The ill-timed, much needed, and merely temporary End.

(This is my brain on imaginary drugs after crying over spilt wine)

Breakfast E-piphanies

2008-12-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

So I had a long holiday weekend, and I took full advantage.

Having wanted to go to the city, I made my way - by plane, train and automobile, save the plane part. I hate those. Thank God it doesn't take one of those to get there.

But everyone from this hellish frozen metropol-is-not goes there this time of year, the only really difference being when we choose to go, or where we spend our time, or which train we take. We go, if for nothing else, to see the people swarm in the streets, like some thousands of sperm on a festive petri dish, tails swishing from side to side, flitting as if flitting was all that mattered. I can't decide if the people are my favorite part, or if it's the form of the buildings and their outline against the sky. Maybe it's something entirely different - a combination of those things along with some hallucinogenic gas pumped up from the grates you step over every few feet.

The holidays seem to make people jolly. Remind them to love. To notice red and green with some seemingly new found appreciation. And they want to dance, and drink, and watch people take on the persona of someone else. Elphaba, or Fiona, or Sophie or some lanky leg-kicker. And the special thing about this place is the people. You somehow expect them to be too busy to be pleasant, to as a whole be too hardened with overexposure to extend common courtesies. And be sure, some of them smile and nod and speak only because it pays their bills, but others will share pieces of their personal stories if given the sign of interest. I think I could write a book were I given the time to hear enough of the nearly unlimited number of stories, told in accents of everywhere you can imagine.

Under the guise of going with friends, to not worry loved ones, I left for a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss, and walked the streets of another world, being careful to chalk up the vagrants, begging through their own cloud of $7 cigarette smoke for money and nothing more. It was once suggested they might actually stand and make money offering to take cutsie little photographs for the tourists standing in awe with their shiny new pink coolpix cameras, wishing some of their jpeg memories included them. I always wonder why they are where they are, and why they cannot change it.

In fact - that's part of the city you can barely drown out - the disparity between the lush park side condoites, the fashionable ritzy store patrons, and the others....those who comb the street for meagre opportunity. It's like having cancer along with an everlasting orgasm, you don't know which is more deserving of your attention, and which will notice your inability to cure either.

In any case - I was - if only for a moment - completely left to be me. To explore, enjoy, and to a certain extent, exploit my individuality. I had no plan, though I brought directions, if only to expedite my freedom from the confines of navigational unawares. I soaked in the glamour of the uptown windows and the quaintness of the faded paint on the signs of walls covered in brightly, sometimes artistic graffiti. Everywhere was old so ingenuisly blended with new, it was obvious there was no grand sceme to screw it up.

It was purely ingratiating, being there. I walked and walked, devouring the scent of life above the stench of a city with so many people that it must thrust them upwards to make room. I sat on the stone steps of a circular monument, soaking in the sun in one of the few places it hit directly, knowing I could be here forever, as long as forever wasn't too long. I paid my $16 for a glass of Cabernet I could drink a jumbo bottle of at home for under $20. I took chances with signals to walk, and dodged the drivers that wanted to play chicken, even though they had the advantage. Its possible I should get some life insurance before I go again.

And I came home drunk with the me I want to be. As I drove through the picturesque Norman Rockwell towns near home, I could feel the weight of normalcy laying itself back across my shoulders where it resides. A cat curled on a clanky, worn radiator in the middle of winter. But the streets were familiar. They didn't take thought, but they brought no surprises to demand a genuine smile.

I had been filled with the city. And still today I am tired with knowing it so well. I am sore from it bringing me so high, pumping me full of new feeling. I am thankful, even all these days later, that I can go again. I am reminded that life is full of possibilities, and that some of them should be recognized before they have passed in a cloud of smog, smug and Starbucks lattes.

The Bigger - Albeit Uncomprehensible - Picture

2008-11-29T14:43:00.001-08:00

I have a thing for history, and if you want to know the truth - I think maybe I, and people like me, may just have a closer connection with past lives. In this regard, I think this is the main point in which my Catholic upbringing is in direct contradiction to what I actually believe. How can souls not be recycled when space is definitive? Heaven being, in reality, climbing a latter in subsequent lives, and hell being forced to endure the same trials again, or trials even worse than before. And besides the fact that certain traits I know I possess must've come from somewhere other than genetics, I choose to consider my past lives in a simplistic, but romantic way. After all - if I am Christian at all, and I think I am, I must acknowledge free will. I know that I fought for the rights of women, and in fact, that I always have been a woman - and in that -I consider I have not been so bad in one life, as to be forced into anything less.

By the way - I am watching Pride & Prejudice for at least the umpteenth time while I write this. I love Jane Austen, though I refuse to read the "Jane Austen Book Club", and I doubt that Kira Knightly is part of a past life - though it would explain her lack of breasts - she is nonetheless younger than me. She would've stolen part of my soul - and so would not be able to act so well as Elizabeth Bennett. I still get lost in the rhetoric, mannerisms, and ribbons. I still wonder why society "et al" does not appreciate the rituals that once governed all interactions of substance.

There are certain time periods that draw me more than others, and I know there is some correlation between those, and who I am now. Or maybe - who I should be. I have always felt I was confused about things I couldn't explain. Flailing around in today's world with traits that don't fit - don't make me old fashioned, don't make me modern. Whatever the case, I don't always feel at home in the world in which I live.

I am an utter romantic.

But I don't believe love exists in it's purest form anymore.

I believe in propriety.

But I don't believe sin has anything to do with how people should interact (except that they should not kill one another).

I believe in looking at the past errors of humans to know what should be done today.

But I don't believe you can be dogmatic in anything. Our financial crisis of today may not end the way it did with the Great Depression, though I hope we have an equally fit leader, and no World War.

Maybe there are no answers in the past, and all I long for when reading old books, or watching The History Channel, or day dreaming of pinafores and butter churns - are honest and simple ways to cope. Back when people were more in tune with nature - at it's mercy even. The eloquence of the written word moved people to change. The harangue of a crowd, who could not read, told leaders of unjustness that required attention. The respect people had for things they could not be sure of. Ghosts. Saints. Love.

I think - as I sit here typing away on a laptop - conveniently expressing myself to anyone who cares to listen with the click of a button - I know we have lost much more than we've gained.

And if not - at least we'd do well to recognize where we are.

Some tiny dot in a larger matrix.

Can't Write On Fridays

2008-11-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

I’ve come to the conclusion recently that I have the strangest, most perverted friends on the planet.

Birds of a feather, I know.

Anyway, I was looking for a certain reference, whilst blowing off large amounts of extremely dull work-related stuff, and went searching through my emails, texts and chats. I came to the above conclusion after noticing certain trends in communications with all of them, except the few who know so little about electronic devices that the most they manage is forwarding crap that’s been forwarded 10,000 times in the last minute.

In order to illustrate why I love the pool of genuinely amusing people I consort with (and also to continue blowing off work) I have compiled my favorite one-liners, or snippets for your reading pleasure. This isn’t exactly my idea, as a friend of mine used to do this on his MySapce profile, and they can be extremely hilarious when taken out of context.

I swear to you – I will correct no spelling.

“He said he broke his penis BTW. You might want to make note of that.”

“I read typoese quite fluently.”

Line 1: “my stil wrist hurts.”
Line 2: “proof that you haven’t been doing the hand technique correctly :P”

Line 1: “am i interrupting?”
Line 2: “interrupting me trying to cajole you into chatting?”

“its really a shame were not lesbians”

Line 1: "OMG GUESS WHAT!
Line 2: "you have a third nipple?"

"asshats dont deserve my brainpower."

"there are worse men. hes not in prison after all".

"the click was NOT in my head."

"I am SO not going to muff dive for him."

"that would be impossible. but it would still be anal."

Line 1: okay...I PROMISE we'll talk at least briefly
Line 2: i hope that's a tightey-whitey reference ;)

"I kille brain cells by drowning them in Coors light."

Line 1: i know youre probably busy, and im bout to go to bed anyway, i just wanted to tell you i love you :)
Line 2: Awwww.... are yous drunk?

"good. now tell me why your avatar here looks like a diaphragm"

" wait - facebook? why? Are you going back to high school?"

"youre just thinking about my keychain, arent you?"

Line1: which end?
Line 2: the big pokey end

Line 1: i have nothing against strippers
Line 2: me neither, unless they have no ass

Things That Go BUMP in the Night

2008-11-20T05:42:00.000-08:00

I think my original decision to have a family bed may have been selfish, and now I can fully understand why pediatricians urge parents to tuck their little angels into their very own comfy little cement-truck-princess-plum-fairy adorned beds.

Sanity, and children who are not afraid to be alone. In the dark. At night.

Two nights ago I babysat for one of the doctors I work for, who has a 12-year old stepson, 3-year old daughter, 2-year old son, and 8-month old foster son. Oh, and one slightly crazy wife, who I “get” completely. My own toddler came with me, as she is extremely impressed with 3YO’s collection of princess-wear, mini kitchen appliances, books, and the full-sized bounce house in the basement – and because no one else will watch her while I babysit. The three youngest of their kids basically went to bed an hour apart, starting with the little one at 6:15, and they each went into their own rooms, and their own respective beds. (The 12YO basically put himself to bed, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t need me to check his pull-up). There was only a slight glitch in this, as my daughter and the 3YO, when left to their own devices in a small section of the house, cordoned off my multiple baby-gate barricades while I put 2YO down at 7:15 – decided to make a beach/castle out of all the bedding from the parents room, along with a couple sections of the newspaper for blankets, and Mom’s 10 pound hand weights for beverages. (I later tried to convince them their sippy cups would work too and that 10 pound tropical umbrella-ed drinks may hurt when dropped. I listened from 2YO’s room as they screamed and giggled with delight, obviously buzzing from the weights, and oblivious to the fact that sleeping was going on elsewhere in the house.

Not the point. I get home from an evening meeting last night, grab some dinner, slump my exhausted self onto the couch and immediately begin the Shower-war with my 11 –year old son, who for whatever reason, thinks being dirty and stinky constitutes some new “grunge” look. He balks, and starts looking for clothes in the downstairs bathroom, thinking again he’d wear whatever he took off this morning and left crumpled on the floor.

“Those clothes are in the washing machine A, go upstairs get some from your room.”

He walks out of the bathroom, and turns as if he’s going to the laundry room.

“No A, go upstairs! There’s nothing clean down here”, I said, a little more firmly this time.

“I don’t need to. I have some clothes down here”, he says, going to retrieve the backpack he brought to sleep over at his cousins over the weekend. He sees the bag has been emptied, and comes back to the living room.

“A, just GO get some clothes and get your BUTT in the SHOWER.”

“Mommy, can you just go get me some underwear.”

“No. YOU go get you some underwear. And get moving because if I have to tell you again, you will NOT go to practice tomorrow.” There was a small gasp as he processed this threat, aware that I am 75% likely to follow through, even with that most heinous of punishments. But he is obviously more nervous about going into the dark abyss of the 2nd storey than he is about not starting a game because he missed a practice.

He turns to his 2YO sister, who sits in her recently dumped toy bin watching Dora. “C, will you go get Bubba some underwear?”

“Okay, Bubba”. And she climbs out of the bucket, and heads upstairs.

“A, GO WITH HER! She can’t even turn the lights on by herself!”

He takes her hand and heads up the stairs with her. To get his underwear.

I called after him, “What in the world kind of boogeymen is SHE going to protect you from?”

He yells back, “She’s not, but if they eat her first, maybe they’ll be too full for me!”

Pinata of Nada

2008-11-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting here. Just waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Break the monotony of the day, brighten my outlook, maybe even make me laugh. It’s been hectic at work lately, and the halls and faces and emails whiz by in a hurry for diagnosis and completed follow ups. I can safely say, I’ve done much, and absorbed very little of it. Some days just go unnoticed.

I wish I were on a plane. A plane to anywhere or nowhere at all – just loving the anticipation of the destination. There’s something intrinsically exciting about travelling. The hubbub of the airport, the beer before boarding, the detailed checklist of what to bring. Do I bring my hair dryer – or hope that the hotel has an ionizing (or whatever the hell it is) one like mine? Do I attempt to smuggle in my toothpaste, or just bring a lot of Trident? Do I smoke 6 cigs before going into the airport in hopes that I can make it through the connection without walking 10 miles to the nearest designated smoking area?

It’s been a boring day in reality. Reality being where I live begrudgingly. Luckily I can drag my camping-tent sized umbrella outside every now and then to chat and puff - not in that order. Today at least I had a couple amusing stories come across my path to keep me from puking up tedium.

They’re not my stories, but I’ll share them anyway.

A doctor, who is insanely good at his job and does it with a passion, has no time for the small details of his life, and can be called ditzy at times. He’s good natured, so he doesn’t mind that we call him that. He flies home to see his parent’s last weekend, and accidentily leaves his keys there. It’s not the first time he’s done this, so he has an extra set. He calls his dad when he gets home and requests he overnight the keys. His father runs to the post office and sends them Express Priority. The package is delivered into the large metal box that houses the mail for all of his posh neighborhood’s residents. The doctor realizes then, standing in front of the large, fortified receptacle that the only key he never made a copy of was the one he needed to access his mail. No key. No package. No clue.

A coworker talks about the Paula Abdul workout video she found, and is very into. It has dance moves that make it much more engaging than plain old aerobics or tai-bo, and she swears she’s firming the gut, toning the butt and losing a couple pounds. She loves this video so much, she convinces her fiancé to do it with her. Because their living room is so small, she stands in front of him, and a little to the left, so he can still see the TV, but they won’t collide while sweating to Straight Up. She’s into the movements when his shirt flies by, landing in front of the TV. No big deal, he’s getting hot. A few minutes later, his athletic break-away pants drop onto the pile that is his shirt. Okay, this really IS good exercise. But when his boxes join the heap of clothes, she finally turns to find him still moving in unison with the figure on the screen. Butt. Ass. Naked. I told her I understood completely why she was marrying him, and that if she took his lead, they really wouldn’t need to watch the video at all.

Moral of the stories? You can fly to California and back for a butt-naked man in your living room but you’d better have a key to get to his package.

Top Floor Please: Revisiting SBT

2008-11-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

I was nervous, or excited, almost impossible to tell which now. Maybe a little of both. So I crossed and re-crossed my legs a dozen times, the sweat from my half-full glass of beer raining tiny droplets onto my bare legs that stretched out from beneath the thick wool of my coat. It was crazy to wear a dress in the throes of winter, but the bar was warm with the body heat of out-of-towners who filled the room with clamor of holiday shopping, tonight's football favorites and diminishing gas prices. The waiting was almost too much, and made it almost impossible to sit, still and serene, leaning with one elbow on the sleek wood of the bar, as if it would keep me in my skin.

Sitting with a head-dotted view of the door, I saw the moment he came in. My belly stirred, but I didn’t get up. Watching as he walked, his eyes smiling, looking for me among the faces, I held my breath when he finally met my gaze. Anyone watching would’ve blushed, not at the expression, but because the room became noticeably warmer. Like someone had finally got the fireplace lit, after dumping in wadded newspaper page after page. Maybe it was just me.

I continued where I was, unmoving, like an Italian marble statue in a museum, afraid of what I’d betray if I rose to meet him. Or that my knees would buckle.

He didn’t speak, only reaching me and taking my hand in his, motioning to the bartender, a cute girl with a blonde ponytail, for one of the same. He winked at me, not missing that I’d ordered his favorite. And then he pressed into me, wrapping his arms around me, brushing his lips against my neck. He obliterated everyone in the room, and I pulled him closer, spreading my knees just enough to accept one of his legs, bringing his body to me, cheek against the soft cotton of his shirt, arms under his cost, around his waist. His leg, my leg, his leg, mine.

No one saw, or even attempted to see what his hands did. No one even turned as we continued the embrace just a little too long. The trembling of my bottom lip as his hand moved swiftly from just above my knee to just between my thighs, the cold from outdoors still on his fingertips. I could feel the pounding in his chest, and his face showed nothing but happiness to see me.

He turned suddenly. Flipping a bill on the counter, we left the glasses as they were to make rings on the surface for the girl to wipe up after we’d gone, the only sign we’d even been there. His hand in mine, we made our way through the quiet of the nighttime lobby to the elevator, and gave the impression of complete calm as we watched the numbers light one by one.

10…9…8…7...6…5…4…3…2…L

~Ding~

As the doors slid closed, what seemed an eternity, I listened as the regifting-quarterback-3-dollar-a-gallon chatter became a whisper and then nothing. And when his hands slid firmly around my waist, I was glad for once to be going to the top floor.

Keep Your Ass Next Door

2008-11-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

I’ve written before about my religious beliefs, briefly, and that if anything – while I believe in God, I can be considered more an agnostic, or existentialist than anything. I am jaded on the subject of organized religion, and sadly disappointed in the Catholic Church in which I was raised, possibly because I am offended that priests don’t like girls – and they always seemed to stick us with the Nuns, who had no urge to touch unless using a large paddle.

Yes, I was a Catholic school girl at one point. Go figure.

Anyway – for those who will choose to be offended by the sacrilege I am about to spew forth, go quietly, or rant – whichever you choose. Either way – I am going to thoroughly discuss the last, and my favorite, of the ten commandments.

10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Let’s start with thy neighbor’s house, shall we? Let me see – if we want to get into that, we’d have to thoroughly pick apart property values, quality of lawn care, and age of the roof of the house next door. And since I know little about value, and cant see mine neighbors lawn or roof, what with all the crap they sell at continuous weekend tag sales piled everywhere, let’s just say this is not a problem for me personally. I’m not even sure why you would want to own your neighbor’s house unless they have a really big yard and an equally hot lawn boy.

I’m thinking this applied more back when homes were made of mud and thatch and the guy next door had better mud. Or a good wheel barrow with which to haul it.

The next part is important.

If you’d seen my neighbor's wife, who is a slovenly, ill-educated young woman that seems to own an endless number of sweat pants, you’d realize why I cannot force myself to covet her. Standing outside smoking one day, I heard her, from across both yards, hock a loogie and spit it into the street with an audible “splat”. Besides, since her name is apparently “You Stupid Bitch”, I have to assume even her husband doesn’t covet her all that much.

My neighbor’s male calls his wife “Stupid Bitch”. Need I say more?

As for my neighbor’s female slave, I believe he calls her “Mom”, and likes her more than Stupid Bitch. I don’t envy her, and certainly don’t want her for my own. She walks past a couple times a day, apparently in a mad dash for her understandable smoke fix, and I wonder at the fact that her family drives up and down the street like Earnhardt at Talladega and no one can give her a ride. She's very scrawny, and I wonder sometimes if they even let her eat.

So far, I think I am less of a sinner.

As for the ox and the ass, well – let’s just say that seems to be redundant - as mentioned under "wife" and "male". Even if they really had these beasts of burden, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least given the full set of living room furniture in their driveway – I am almost certain I would want them more than anything else my neighbor has to offer. I wonder sometimes, if they did have an ass, if I could obtain it fair and square for a case of Bud and carton of Lucky Strikes.

When it comes right down to it - if I did want anything that rightly belongs to my neighbor, I'm quite sure I could buy it for $1.50 this Saturday.

Chitlins and Caviar

2008-11-11T06:01:00.000-08:00

I grew up in middle-class suburbia, the child of working-class parents who did well enough, and not more. I had everything I needed, and have very fond childhood memories, replete with bikes, a boom box, and the essential collection of Garbage Pail Kids. I have not improved my lot any, but do not regret the lack of rise to a more enviable social status. Needless to say, the black tie events were nil, and I needed less grace and etiquette than energy, and good old American know-how. However, I pride myself in being decently able to carry off a semi-classy moment when I need to.

So, now that I’m working for a group of people, that especially for this area, make more money than the President, I come across times here and there where I am not exactly in my element. For instance, every month we have an evening meeting that ends with a dinner at some posh-ish restaurant or another, where I watch in amazement as they order a couple $200 bottles of wine, just to make sure everyone knows they can. And while deep down this squandering of money for show hurts my sense of altruistic social responsibility, I ride their coat tails to a good buzz, and enjoy the extreme superiority of the flavor. I'm like their little charity case. Poor Jessica, can't even afford something better than Kendall Jackson. Poor thing.

Because of this, I am now in the midst of planning the group’s private holiday dinner, which is to be held at one of the loveliest, fanciest “mini-mansion turned hotel/restaurants” in the area. You see, back in the late 19th century, this area was popular with jet set (like the Rockefeller family), who built splendid “cottages” to rival the greatest homes in America. We still cater to a large NYC second home-owner population, and if you can ignore the overwhelmingly large number of poor people and drug dealers, give plenty of basking in culture opportunities in the summer. Anyway – so I’m talking to the catering manager for this hotel, and she instructs me to choose the allocated number of selections for each course, or to give her specific instructions for the chef and sommelier.

“You’ll need to choose several canapé’s, and alert me to any vegetarians, or other dietary constraints”, she says, moving on to the entrees, which are apparently prix fixe – which I assume means they are endorsed by NASCAR.

I want to say, “Lady, it’s going to be the middle of December in New England, I don’t think we’ll be outside under a canopy, no matter what it looks like.” But, assuming by context she meant something more like appetizers, I just make note that chips and salsa are not an option. Then I google it. Why the hell isn’t hors’dourves good enough? Its hard enough to spell to make it sound all special and stuff. No matter, I just murmured my assent, and assured her I’d have our selections to her well in advance, and that I was sure we’d want plenty of goat cheese and whatnot.

It’s possible that this planning will be good for me. Even with the plethora of events I’ve planned in the past, including various company Christmas Parties, cookouts and team building days –this will be by far the most elegant event. But given my knowledge consists more of barbeque's, clam bakes, and tailgating - I'm not sure I'm prepared to face this challenge without severe Internet usage, and over-googling. I feel obligated to take out a small loan to get a mani-pedi and a sleek new hair-do. I may even need to accessorize just to avoid looking like Elli May Clampet in a Beverly Hills Boutique.

In fact, I am considering skipping TJ Maxx and getting my dress from JC Penny.

Now that’s class.

Lamentations of Boredom

2008-11-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

I love the big city.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the bustling outskirts of Atlanta, and being the largest growing city in the US during the 80’s, there was no end to the vastness of the place and the beauty of the rising skyline.

And I miss the city. I long for the height and breadth of it. The flowing of people on the sidewalks like the quickening of a pulse….hot blood in your veins. Feeling alive.

So I am planning to go to the only place one can go to quench a thirst like this.

The Big Apple.

I don’t know how exactly I’ll make it happen, but in my mind – I am already there. My desire to be there swirls around in my head, making me giddy, depriving me of oxygen, and I want to stand on Broadway, peel off my clothes and feel the movement of the city against my skin. Melt into it.

And if I don’t get arrested for that – I’ll dance down through Central Park, oblivious to the danger, rebelling against constraints, and find a place on the grass to lay, looking up at the stars, drunk with the freedom that is the night sky, walled in by the steel and glass and noise. I want to wake wrapped solely in the ribbons of exhaust, energy and the sweat of the place. Watch the sunrise over Manhattan, and pause again to breathe in the vivacity of the city that never sleeps.

I don’t think I should even need to stop at one of the many exotic little restaurants, gorging myself with the fare of other cultures, or sipping the deep red wine I love. I want intoxication from the place itself. Pure, unadulterated life. I don’t want to shop, or waste a quarter in the viewing machines atop the Empire State Building. I want to take it in whole, instead of bit by bit.

If you’ve never been there – the place is like Gulliver in Lilliput – a body of living, breathing flesh laying itself in the harbor, cells darting from here to there to work or play or paint the world with graffiti. It is personified, and doesn’t hold itself to the rules of inanimateness – but flaunts itself in its virility. It makes me want to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

If I can’t get there soon, I think I should die of craving for its splendor.

Anyone want a postcard?

One Way Streets

2008-11-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

I think I’ll write a book.

101 Mistakes People Make in Marriage

It sounds kind of silly coming from someone who thinks so little of the whole institution - and has never even tried it, but hear me out. I ask questions, I take notes. I delve into the married lives of my friends, family and strangers who find it irresistible to tell me everything about their private lives over a glass of wine.

It happens.

I think about this topic often, and mull it over like some cow’s cud of a subject - swallow it, regurgitate it, and consider it again. But for blog’s sake – I’ll just summarize one of the scenarios some couples use as a reason to take the plunge..........

Society’s Norms
Let’s say relationships are a road – a journey of some sorts. You begin the way you should, with dinner and movies and a cute little peck on the cheek in your doorway. Things are new and fresh, and get to know each others’ friends and relatives. Time passes; you move in together, you get a dog. And one day you look up and realize this road is a dead-end alley with only one option ahead. Marriage. Since you also picked up a house and a set of matching snowmobiles, and the journey has been a long one, you take the plunge – because it’s what everyone else does. It’s what your parents did. It’s what the Cleavers did. You have kids, refinance the house so you can buy a big-screen plasma, and you become each others’ beneficiaries for your 401ks. Turning back and starting the journey over isn’t an option because it’s impossible to break up a good pair of snowmobiles.

So even though you were happy when you turned the corner and started down the road, you can’t really remember what that feels like because your adjustable mortgage rate just went up and the pinch has made you a bit forgetful. You’re not even sure you know as much about this person anymore, because they’ve changed. They become domesticated, and can’t seem to laugh like they used to. But heck, you’ve got kids with braces.

You did everything you were supposed to do. Everything everyone else on the block did, only half of those people have filed for divorce. You jumped off a bridge because Dad did, and Billy did, and so did Pete.

What’s worse is that you were probably young when you got married. She was hot and energetic, and he was full of optimism and had great abs. 10 years pass, and you can still see why you did this. It hasn’t been so long that you’ve forgotten what you wanted back then, but his naked ninja trick isn’t quite so funny, and her self-consciousness is at an all-time high since she noticed a gray hair growing from her areola. The most you can hope for is that the kids are in bed early so you can watch the game uninterrupted while she reads the latest Oprah’s book club novel in bed, rubbing Oil of Olay on her breasts.

Another 5 years, and the house is almost paid off. The kids are heading for college, and the dog is buried in the back yard with a cross made of ceiling trim, “Buddy” written in large letters with a Sharpie. She spends most of her time with her book club, and he works late with the excuse that he needs to put a little more into the 401k to make up what he lost. You remember each other’s names, but the rest is all routine. Like some mechanical iRobot man and wife, less the extra chick in black leather cat suit or Will Smith’s sense of humor. It’s bland, but you can’t complain. You never argue and your old neighbor Billy’s wife took half his paycheck when she left.

And above all – you’ve got his and her helmets for the snowmobiles.

A Little Like Leap Year - For Dating

2008-11-04T05:36:00.001-08:00

It’s not a secret around here that it’s a terrible place for young (and youngish) single people. It’s almost impossible to meet someone, especially someone with any sense, and there’s no where to go to try. Coming from a big city like Atlanta, it can be very discouraging, and the deadness of the social scene is downright depressing. For the past couple years, I’ve been sitting patiently, avoiding dating anyway - so what of it.

But this morning, much to my surprise (thank God I wore my cute pants) – I found out where all the smart, good looking guys hang out.

Apparently, every four years they all come together in some ceremonial rite, passed down from generation to generation – bright eyed, and glowing in their sense of togetherness. They trail in and out of their gathering place like its some highly-clothed male revue stage, and nod politely to each other, avoiding any sobering discussion, happy to be where they are. It’s mid blowing how appealing this is for a girl like me. Someone who didn’t realize the social importance of this day. Someone who was anxious for it without even knowing it could mean meeting the man of her dreams.

So, I saunter proudly up to the crowd – blushing in my womanly pride, and begin my very best mating rituals. Leaning up against the large window frame, crossing my ankles below, I set my eyes on a particularly juicy one, and give him that “come hither, you hottie” look.

“Well hello there handsome, I’m a Libra, and a liberal. Are you ready for change?” He looks away and, obviously rushed for time, proceeds to talk about dogs with the guy next to him.

Fine. He must own guns or something.

Spotting another even better candidate, I make my move. He’s handing out some sort of propaganda, probably advocating something really sexy. I take the proffered pamphlet, and bat my eyelashes just a bit - so as not to be all, stupid-hooker like.

“So, you come here often? I’m voting “yes” on question 3. I love dogs…….”, giving him a little wink.

Unfortunately, he’s feverishly trying to share his wares with the people still spilling in through the double doors.

Okay. Not as easy as I thought.

I make my way slowly through the line, scanning the faces in front of me and behind me, sure that I’ll find some new love. Some well-informed guy that spends just enough time gleaning information from all the best sources, but not so much that he forgets to build muscle, and drink a beer or two.

Feeling a little discouraged, I do my duty, and start towards the door. There’s always next time after all.

I feel a tap on my shoulder, and turn to find a tall man of good stature, the most beautiful puppy dogs eyes I’ve ever seen, and a neatly shaven swatch of hair on his chin that makes me wonder if it tickles when he kisses.

“Hello”, he says, “Your Woo-Hoo-Obama sticker seems to have fallen off. Here, let me put it back for you.”

I know at once he’s a closet Republican, but I say nothing, knowing damned well that sometimes opposites, and opposing parties, do attract.

ELECTION DAY! Don’t forget ladies – women and men have fought for our right to do it. (WOO-HOO!)

Throne-Birds

2008-11-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

I have no idea how this happens so often, but once again – I am amazed at how school-yardish work can be. When you look carefully, or think about it even briefly, we don’t change much socially from pre-school into adulthood. And proof in point?

Chairs.

I remember as early as elementary school swapping chairs when no one was paying attention, because I preferred blue to orange, maybe one of the metal disc thingies on the feet were missing and it wobbled, or possibly a much more prestigious (and larger) 5th grader-chair had been secretly installed here to impart a manner of favoritism for one special, alert child – who would obviously take possession of the chair by knowing it was meant for him or her. Some chairs had initials, or bad words like “fart-face” or “dummy” carelessly carved into them, leaving little scrolls of barbed plastic that ripped the tender skin under your knees or caught your new fall tights and made them holey. And then of course – there was the chair that everyone avoided but Snot-faced Stevie – who was constantly picking boogers and then conveniently had to adjust his seat. There were chair arguments. Chair fights even. And no one looked forward to coming back from the holiday vacation to realize they’d all been rearranged.

It’s my stinkin chair Billy, now get your nasty scuzmitts off it before I show you how I get my saddle shoes so shiney.

So a few years ago, back in Atlanta – I walk out of my hole (office) into the large room of 100 or so cubicles on the collection floor – to find about half of the employees snarling at each other, while a dozen of the managers are pushing around black leather chairs in a procession to rival any reverent funeral. They were doing their best to ignore the raucous of the inferiors, and gathered the chairs in the conference room. The black chairs, with much higher backs, and comfier cushion, were originally meant for managers only, but through time had filtered into the room, being given to “favorites” of the managers, who would steal one here and there when someone else left. To make a long story short – the chair-fight had escalated to the point that the owners of the company deemed it necessary to remove them all, and have no one chair be better than another.

I laughed hysterically. One lady – I believe in her late 50’s - had even written her name in white out on the arm of her chair, and refused to go back to her desk until it was returned to her.

This morning, in a far different setting, the chair-fight was relived. The doctors I work for have gone through a myriad of chairs, trying to decide which model they would be willing to sit on to best perform their duties. The guy in charge of buying them has had loaners from various furniture stores for months now, and with no indication on which the doc’s feel most at home in. He has asked over and over, politely, and more urgently – with the sales people hounding him for the return of their chairs – or payment in any case. With a hint of defiance, he finally sent the group an email threatening to remove every chair, without so much as a milk crate in replacement, if they do not decide today.

Needless to say, the black leather one won again.

Dust to Dust

2008-11-01T12:46:00.001-07:00

I’ve mentioned my cycles before.

And as much as I’d love to discuss my claim to womanhood, I do not refer to that cycle – I mean the death of contentedness, and rebirth of folly. Over the length of perhaps a year, or less, I go from an antisocial, gloomy constant – who focuses on what she should do rather than what she wants to do – to a severely ADD fanatic who would chose controlled vice and inspired madness over the nunnery that is my reality. It’s not so bad that I become dangerous to myself, or my family, but it tugs at the deep-rooted Catholic guilt I so love to stroke like a long-haired cat, curled up on my breast as I try to sleep. Sometimes there is an overwhelming desire to analyze right and wrong, and others I simply want to wallow in wrong and hide behind my mask of comfortable servitude.

I am currently in the latter stages of distracted ill-humor, and though I wear my happy-mask well – I go from one task to another without really noticing a thing. I work, cook dinner, and wait for the time when the kids are in bed, or watching whatever has replaced MLB, and I slip into bed with my book and my bottle of wine, not knowing which I want to escape to more. (I’ve made that easier lately, on my British Monarch kick, which involves so much debauchery and vice – I feel like I have everything I need and more). I wander though the day, seeming cheerful and energetic to most, even sometimes fooling myself, and then I think of him, or notice where I am – and I run hiding into the closet inside my head.

My God. It’s not really as bad as it seems. I am convinced I can rationalize almost anything, and do so adequately enough that I really am NOT a bad person. And besides, while I love drinking, smoking and having sex – at least I confine myself to only smoking regularly, drinking in spurts, and sex in my head. The way I see it, I could easily be sainted for less in today’s world. I’m like one of Henry VIII’s wives – but without someone to pull my sweatpants on for me or fetch my horse from the stables.

If I don’t make any sense, excuse me please. I am on the third day of a weird high-alcohol, low-sustenance diet – and have found the most expensive bottle of cheap wine for my daily ration.
Maybe I should go to mass in the morning.

***

Playing House

2008-10-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

It is without doubt that I am stuck in the wrong era, and I’ve known this since I was very young. It’s apparent in my fondness for run-on sentences and heaps of commas, and the way I sit mesmerized in an 18th century school house at a local historical sight, fingering the smooth grooves of the long table-desks, alert to the spirit the room holds. The impression life leaves on places well-worn is palpable, and at times I think I have only to close my eyes to see through the eyes of the past. I am more and more certain that reincarnation is a possibility and my spirit has a shelf-life without expiration. That I know someone I’ve known, and loved, before. And with all this – comes being torn between some set of values I want to have, and those that make more sense for me in today’s world.

So I amuse myself by imagining (I play make-believe with myself often, for entertainment purposes only) that I am June Cleaver, in today’s world. It’s not my favorite decade, but it’s easily envisioned – thanks to TBS – and it was a time of rigid conservatives and perfect ladies.

***

My husband (those who know me know how funny that sounds) comes home from a long day at the office, where he sells life insurance, or some such dull and unglamorous thing. I greet him at the door with kiss on the cheek, and Mich Ultra – tugging on curl from my perfectly coiffed hair as he slips his hand around my aproned waist. It’s his favorite apron. The one with the ruffles.

“Where are the children, dear?”

“Why, Johnny is at the baseball field and I’ve given the little ones their supper early, and all are bathed and watching a Sponge Bob marathon in bed.” I flash a quick wink, and he knows I’ve once again forgotten my undergarments. “Would you like to have dessert before your dinner, darling?”

“I think that’s a splendid idea.”

“I’ve laid it out in your study.” It’s the one room in the house that is off limits to the offspring, and he saunters towards the sliding wooden doors, clicking on the iHome as he enters, filling the room with Julie London’s soft voice. I watch as he positions himself in the large, leather chair behind the desk, and begins fiddling with the crinoline under my skirt.

“So you received my text, then”, I say, watching for the smile I know is coming. He loves that about me – the way I refuse to go an entire day without rousing him before he even gets home.

“I did, and I’ll show you exactly my reaction, you naughty little kitten. And be glad my secretary is a man, or you might think better of making me think such things at the office.”

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

This is where my reverie is broken. The casserole is done.

I dole out a portion for the young kids and call the oldest to the table. And throughout dinner, its not the Ward at the head of the table I’m missing.

It’s dessert.

Skeletons and Ghosts

2008-10-28T05:38:00.000-07:00

It makes no sense, but I do it just the same. Having been drawn to the window for no reason whatsoever, I stand there peering through the crack in the threadbare white curtains that let all the light through. From here, I can see the entry to our short, dead end street, and at times I imagine your head appears over the now lifeless goldenrod that hangs over the neighbors’ chain link fence. Why you’d be walking down my street is of no importance when in reality you’ll never even drive down it.

Swirling for a moment in this imaginary realm of bittersweet phantoms, my son pops into view, tossing his baseball up and catching it in the smooth brown mitt of his glove as he trots home from the field. Like the dusty wipe of a blackboard, you’re erased from sight, breathing in bits of the ephemeral picture and choking back sobs instead of sneezes. Reality sets in. It is once again an impossibility.

I stagger backwards until I feel the bed against the back of my calves, and I sit. The book I’ve been using to relieve my mind sits open next to me, turned over, binding strained into a ridged ravine. I was so involved in it earlier; I had a hard time hiding my irritation when demanded by the kids for lunch to be made. And now I have no idea where I left off. It’s as though my mind has become lava, which when heated and engaged flows quickly and warmly wherever it chooses to go. And with little less than a change in the wind, it has chilled to a congealed, almost solid mass of cold, hollow stone.

The comfort of the loneliness I lived with before you has been replaced by the misery of the loneliness after you. It’s not been the same. I’ve not been the same. I can work doggedly every day, barely slowing down to see the faces around me, or hear what they say when I stand against the fence, cigarette balanced between my fingers, lost in the break time chatter of weather and politics and loved ones. I wonder, as I nod my head in answer to some unheard question, if purgatory, and in that case heaven, are earthbound places, and have little to do with afterlife at all. Maybe we pay for sins and mistreatment and our wrongs in human suffering – and what happens to our souls afterwards is merely a matter of leftover debt, a palingenetic transaction.

It doesn’t matter really. I’ve become accustomed to looking for a word from you, where there are none. I’ve accepted that I can call to you as often and as loudly as I want – and nothing will bring you to me. Nothing I can do anyway. It is without hope that I go to the window knowing that the skeletons in my closet matter not at all compared to the ghosts in the street.

The Beholder's Cataract

2008-09-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

In this new, or if not new then expedited, cycle of my soul's Phoenix-like dying and rebirth - I am becoming more aware of myself and the way my mood plays on my appearance as children on a smouldering summer blacktop, leaving the remnants of footprints on the foul-smelling surface. This is nothing new. Some people hide their emotions, tucking them safely away in some cavernous inner pocket, only revealing them when they're sure they're alone - using the sounds of water beads spanking fiberglass to drown out the suffering. But I am not that person.

Mirrors become my enemy on a bad day. I don't need them to show me the fettered potty-mouth wretch I am at times, or the incandescence of cheek when I feel like giving the world a coke. I know whatever it is, it's there. Plastered on every follicle, pore and pound - liquid grouch oozing from the skin and forming a mask that's insoluble until washed clean with sunshine and puppy dog kisses. I see ugly, and it makes me feel worse. It's like PMS without the egg.

Imaging its all in my head is the easy part. Painting the smile on my face - I may notice my teeth have visibly yellowed overnight and swear-off coffee for the day, a swear that will be forgotten in the fifteen minutes it takes to get to work. A huge reddish mountain has formed on my chin and I wonder if Clearasil only works on teenagers, and why I never needed it when I was one. I slip a pilled sweater taut over a hideous belly, and pull back the ragged Medusa locks into a bun. There's no sexy anymore. Ick has replaced it in the form of wrinkles and grays. I utter a "F*#k it" and go. No one will notice.

Arriving at work is, in my head, akin to Moses in a sea of (non-red) people. The path is magically cleared for the fleet I walk on, and heads turn to avoid looking directly at such hideousness. I stay in my office all day, slinking out secretly for bathroom breaks and Skittles. By the time I get home, my head aches from worrying that I've nauseated my coworkers with my Ora, and that some of them may even experience disgust-induced bowel irritations which keep them up through the night causing them to wake up feeling emotionally ugly too. It spreads, you know.

So I run away for a while before bed, trying desperately to concentrate on my book and not my toddler's 30th request for more fishies. I click off the bedside lamp early, and know that the morning will be better. Sleep is what's wanted. 9 times out of ten, or enough to make the odds better than Biloxi blackjack, its true. I wake to a bird that hasn't noticed yet how cold the mornings are, and he sings to warm himself. The reflecting surfaces are more forgiving. The clothes aren't quite as ready for Goodwill.

And I wonder to myself............do they have pills for this?

Breathing in the Smoldering Crumbs of Us

2008-09-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

There are days when reality seems more like a place where people I know live. I can see it from where I stand, but it exists for me only in the sense that I exist in the blurred lines of my own image on the shower-fogged mirror. I can almost convince myself I am sufficiently happy for small moments, if I can but shush the self-pitying lost-dog sniffles buried deeply enough they can almost be drowned out with a lullaby. And it works for me, this myopic life of dazzling sunrises spilling through threadbare curtains , or crippling glimpses of hellish shadows flickering on sleep-deprived ceilings. The highs are enough, barely, to get me through the ugly twists and treacherous curves that can lead just as easily to ruin as to prosperity, and that often carry off a fallacy of better days ahead.

I want to say is that it is possible to get by. To muddle through ones life without seeing or feeling much except small shocks of palpable reality that are sweet even if horrible, just because you can raise goosebumps when you run your fingertips along your own backside. It it possible to clank along as an automaton, outwardly functioning, raising children, earning a promotion, electing leaders and do so with very little true interaction with yourself, or anyone around you. You can maintain with little thought and even less feeling and what becomes of you at last does not change much.

But the difficulty is giving over to this charade completely. Acceptance does not come without a battle, and only if you are not victor, for no one wins acceptance. And laying inert on shores of Omaha Beach, clutching your last flag, thinking it would be easier to let it be what it will, you notice a glint of light spread across the offing and bleed upwards into the sky. You lay for a moment watching the colors fuse and become something altogether different. something with substance and heat and a pulse. You let your body warm, imaging you can feel the beads of nighttime tears dispersing from your clammy skin. The enemies of your soul retreat, and you are victorious against the aches that held you steadfast for an eternity of minutes and hours until you were ready to throw up your hands and in your towel.

Revived by this, you march back into the world with renewed, seemingly bona fide confidence, the sanguine arch upon your brow, and insist you will not surrender. Not now, not today. You dress yourself, pour your coffee, and wipe away the frost from your windshield. The mango-colored morning warms your half-full cup of hope. "Maybe it's not so bad", you say, quietly chiding yourself for being so pitiful. Laughing a little at your vulnerabilities and for acting so much like the people you despise who wallow in their I-Cant-Change-It worlds, holding out their hands for quarters.

And you will go on this way for as long as possible, recognising the holiday from reality for what it is. You laugh were you can, and take pictures in hopes they will jog your memory like peppermint and tobacco. Life seems back to normal, and relief can be read in headlines on your face. But in the back of your mind, you dread the moment that once again you will realize the stage you stand upon, feel the grooved wood pushing against your bare feet. You see again where you are and cringe at sight of the empty seats before you, collapsing once more and crying out for the lost shards of your soul.

The Old Man (Lil Ditty Bout Jack n Diane)

2008-07-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

He wasn't there today.

The man in the cemetery on the road I pass everyday at the same time was missing. Not missing as in “ we found his car idling on the side of the road and him no where in sight". He just wasn't there.

But I know his story.

I read it in his demeanor. The way he drooped as he leaned against his late-model Ford. The way his neck was cricked to the side, just so.

Jack had met Diane fifty or so years ago in a small café in Philly while there on business. She had slipped up to his table, youth swaying in her hips like an a cappella tango, and set the steaming cup of hours-old coffee on the table in front of him. The tiny white apron was snuggly tied at her waist, which was small for such a tall girl.

She looked down at him, hazel eyes meeting his with a smile, "Would you care to try the Shepherd's pie? It's the cook’s specialty, and we've got a little left."

"Yes. Yes, that sounds perfect, thank you", he smiled back, handing her the tattered paper menu.

That was all it took. Jack was married with three lovely kids, but the weekend he spent with Diane would change him forever. He hadn't had the courage to touch her, though her eyes invited him many times before he quit her, and one kiss as they parted ways left a taste on his lips sweeter than a ripened mango.

He left her with only his card, and the knowledge that they wouldn’t meet again.

One day months later when his secretary laid his mail amidst the piles on his worn mahogany desk, among it was a letter from her. He silently slit the envelope and pulled out the neatly-folded paper. It was the most moving and heartfelt letters he'd ever received.

They began to write and wrote back and forth for many years, rarely going more than a few months without some correspondence. Stories, poems, and rattlings of day-to-day events were shared with a flowering of words and thoughts that neither'd known they possessed. Jack saw her only once more, in a photograph she sent years later. Her hair had become dappled with gray, and the smile in her eyes had spread from their corners and down her cheeks. Though there was something romantically desolate about the picture, he found her lovelier than ever.

After his youngest child married, and his wife passed, Jack decided to find her. He needed to see her again. Feel her breath on his cheek again. Read to her as she fell asleep, and name every nuance in her eyes. He hadn't heard from her in a few months, but since his retirement, the letters had been necessarily less frequent.

He traveled to where she lived, and imagined the surprise she would find to see him at her door. She'd never married, though against acceptance, had had children by a man long gone. Stepping up the stone stair to her front door, he wondered for a moment if the time for this had not already come and gone, if he was too late to come back for her. He forced a quick rap at the door before he lost his nerve.

A woman, mid thirties, answered the door. She was tall and thin, and in everyway familiar except for the blonde hair that fell neatly onto her shoulders.

"May I help you?"

"Yes, miss. I'm looking for Diane Johnson".

"Can I ask why?" she said, the features of her face hardening almost imperceptibly.

"Well….I am an old friend, and I've come to town hoping to visit her. Can you please tell her Jack is here?"

"Jack?" She stood staring. A tear trembled on her eyelid and then slowly rolled down her cheek. "You're him, aren't you? You're the one she waited for."

Jack smiled, "She talked about me? Well, I guess I'm one and the same."

"But……well…..I'm so sorry. My mother passed away a month and a half ago.”

Jack spent the rest of the afternoon with Emily, talking about Diane, looking at the photographs that illustrated the story of her life that'd she'd been sharing with him all along. They went to her grave together and he traced the words on her headstone with his fingers. He knelt and wept.

A few months later Jack moved to the town where Diane was buried. He'd spent his whole life wanting to be near her, and living to be what he was supposed to be. He spent every sunrise and sunset at her grave. They were her favorite times of the day. The times he'd only once spent with her in life, and only for two days. For a couple years he did little but read, write, trek the few hours to visit his grandkids, and visit Diane.

Until finally the sun waned, and its setting would last forever.

Little Blue Vessel's of Afternoon Delight

2008-07-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

I read an article earlier this week on Viagra being used to treat a side effect of antidepressants in women. While the first thing that elicited a good guffaw was the use of one drug to alleviate side effects of another, the thought of going to CVS to pick up my Viagra made the entire piece a little moment of mirth over coffee. In fact, I sat for a moment and envisioned myself, toddler in tow, chucking my basket-full of sultry-scented body wash, Trident White, Marlboro Light’s, Red Bull and a box of condoms on the pharmacy counter and watching as the young 20-something girl behind the counter smirks as she peels the little labels off my Prozac and Viagra for me to initial.

I keep reading, and in my head, it only gets better.

"For women on antidepressants with orgasm problems, this may provide some wonderful relief," said psychologist Stanley Althof, director of the Center for Marital and Sexual Health of South Florida in West Palm Beach, who was not involved in the study. "But it will not improve their desire or arousal."

Does the part where Dr. Althof “was not involved in the study” mean that somewhere in Florida doctors were drugging depressed women with the little blue pills and attempting not only to arouse them, but to “scientifically” ensure they could achieve an orgasm? Are women in West Palm Beach really that accommodating to their physicians? Maybe the offer to participate in this “study” came complete with a Mercedes and a new pair of jugs?

Again I’m picturing myself in my last OB/GYN’s office, knees up, heels planted firmly in the holsters. The practice at which I was a patient had me frequently seeing a Dr. McDreamy-rival with no wedding band, which even motivated me to shave “down there” before driving to the hospital to have my youngest, just in case he was on-call. He strolls in, leans against the counter, and explains that he needs women to volunteer for a study, and that all I have to do is take these pills every day for two weeks, then come back in for a “physical test” that would basically involve a little timed manual stimulation, and if necessary, penetration by a medical professional.

So after laughing myself through the rest of the article, which culminates in a statement by the pharmaceutical company that it has no plans to market or seek license for this drug for female “sexual dysfunction”, I started to wonder…

If Viagra can be used to make women climax as easily as men, would birth control pills make men as sensitive, and thoughtful as women?

Up the Stairs of Concepts, Into the Pit of Wrong

2008-07-22T05:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe the problem with the world today isn't just rising fuel prices, tainted tomatoes or the Bush Administration. Maybe drowning our daughters in images of malnourished models, wrinkless middle-aged women, and thousand dollar shoes isn't why things seem amiss. It may even be possible that our increasing time at work or commuting, and waning hours spent in the not-so-great-anymore-outdoors is not effecting our lives at all. After all, what's life really worth without a fat paycheck, low interest rate mortgage, and hefty retirement account?

I don't mean to say that 10 hours a day behind a desk kissing some fat, cranky rich guy's ass isn't hard work and totally worth it. Sure, you're not likely these days to end up running the company, and handing it off to your eldest son. And maybe you won't live to spend your golden years blissfully drinking brandy on the (hurricane-torn) beach, but that's really not what I'm getting at.

I've been working in the yard as of late, since the sun has finally decided to grace us with her presence. You know, getting my hands dirty….breaking a sweat…. And it reminded me of something I recently read.

"And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron it gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses." (John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath- 1939)

Maybe we've forgotten our place here. That we, though we have advanced, and innovated, and "broken-through" with science and medicine and mathematics; have lost our place on the earth.

There was a time when we grew what we ate, we built our own houses out of materials we gathered from our own land, and we prepared the food we put into the bellies of our children. We didn't worry about pesticides or preservatives or active cultures. We didn't need pills to get us to sleep, because we tired ourselves by living. We didn't suffer from anxiety because we knew that God, or Mother Nature, or the harvest ruled our lives. We depended on the riches of the earth for what we had, and the earth received our blood, sweat, tears and honor in return.

When was the last time you gave thought to the animal that gave its life for your meal, or wondered if it was treated humanly before it did so? When was the last time you slept deeply after laboring over something you made with your own hands? When have you grown life-giving nutrients with care and patience, just as you would grow your children?

Maybe something has been lost on the world that we cannot get back. Maybe, like the tender blossom of a naive teen, we have lost our innocence, and in the pursuit of Escalades, vacation homes, and Hedge Funds, we have lost what matters most. The union of living things has become extinct, like the arctic creatures that will soon lose their homes to Greenhouse. And our ingenious cures for illnesses and disorders that we surely caused when we chose greed over knowledge will pay off in the end. We will die in multimillion dollar hospitals, with six figure balances, and almost no concern over the divorce of man and nature that we've left in our wake. We will have forgotten the days when sunrise was the only alarm clock necessary, and fun was little more than a favorite uncle with a gift for telling stories.