Yes, I'm crazy. No, I did not videotape the goats coming to our house. Because on the last boat ride we took (the first and last for now), I stood up and dropped the video camera into a few drops of water enjoying the bottom of the boat. That baptism which the camera decided was a good enough reason to give up on living.
A lady, a nice lady, who looked more like a girl, but 40 means lady, she came and brought us the goats. She's renting out a stall in the barn. We stood in the driveway while the big truck backed up and then the big white door - we could see shapes through the crack in the door, but the suspense was tremendous. Then after an eternity the door was whooshed open, and there was the smallest herd of goats and sheep, standing silently inside. Looking cornfused. The kids breathed in a collective oohhhh.
The goats figured out to walk out, and as we stood aside a lady named Wendy who looked more like let's call her haggard, not a friend to sunscreen or its benefits, anyway, she was a goat expert, and sort of waved them the right direction, which worked for them. They managed to trot up the driveway and into the kingdom of the barn, which they have now dominated with large amounts of tiny poops. Spread around so you can't gather them very well. By the way.
We hang on the fence and watch the goats. The sheep hang in a set of three - white, brown and black. (I identify with the black sheep.) (heh heh). They look more intelligent than their country goat brothers and sisters who look like hicks. Something about the skinny goat faces, tiny teeth and beards. They look like they spend alot of time laid off work in bars in Alabama low country. The sheep look like concert pianists.
Goats and sheep don't do a helluva lot. Chickens are working for you. They squeeze you out something you can eat, once a day. The goats and sheep - they're furry. They have the weird slanted eyeball pupils that is a little like satan. You can see why the devil likes goats.
Anyway, it's nice to have something living in the barn. The bunnies are fun but they don't say baaa. They're so busy with their typing. (Bunnies look like stenographers.)
Hank the big sheepherding dog thinks God has answered his call. His own herd of sheep. He just sits there loveglazed, looking at them with the adoration of a betrothed on his wedding day. Hank is a lumberjack.
Owen, our scared dog, is a priest. Maisie, our old dog, is a former showgirl.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009
The Ice Cream Man Scares Me
The ice cream man started coming by the house everyday. It was cute at first but after awhile, give it a rest man. We don't have that much money for ice cream, already.
I made the mistake of befriending the guy. Chris. His ice cream truck looks like typical ice cream trucks. A slightly beaten up white van with peeling ice cream stickers on the side. It looks seedy, like maybe he sleeps on the floor next to the Blow Pops.
Chris is from Armenia which I think is an actual country, not just in Glendale. My mom thinks he's Italian, which is more romantic, so I haven't broken it to her. The first time we chatted it was exciting, the kids had their dollars clutched in their hands, every ice cream looked so good, no one could decide anything. Chris told me he was thinking of getting an incubator, to raise baby chickens. We spent about 3000 dollars on ice cream and the visit ended.
The next time we saw him (the very next day), I struggled out there with three wet kids from the pool. (The kids go into a frenzy when they hear the truck's warbled music. 'I peen puck' Lilly says.) As the kids pick their ice creams, and I say hi to Chris, he reaches out to shake my hand. I shake it gratefully, and then pull my hand back at the appropriate time. He does not let go of my hand. There is the moment of ick. He is holding my hand because he wants to hold my hand because he wants - what does he want? How bout Awkward? I wonder how much awkward costs, and here I am getting it for free. I finally get my hand back, but now I can no longer look Chris in the eye. Why did he do that? Why couldn't we be friends with a regular handshake? Did he have to ruin ice cream??
The last time I saw Chris (I believe it was the next day after that), he wanted me to make a phone call for him. Something about wanting a dozen eggs delivered to a liquor store at 7 pm. I had been watching too much true crime on tv - was he negotiating a drug deal? Why did I have to call for him? Couldn't he call on his ice cream phone? Of course I said I would call, although I went inside with knit brows, and made the half-hearted call to some guy named Kevin who had no idea what I was talking about: "um, my ice cream man wants some eggs or something?"
I don't go out when the ice cream man comes anymore. Since the weird egg phone call and the handshake, I send someone else out with the kids - husband, visiting mom friend, aunt. Anyone but me. The ice cream truck music sounds like a horror movie in general, but now it really gets me.
Summer is almost over. I promise to venture forth and visit Chris in one last brave act before the last day winds down. I will wave from a respectful distance. If he tries to get me to engage in some kind of strange other conversation, I will wave and pretend I've undergone a lobotomy. It's not that I don't want to be friends, or to help people get their eggs or drugs, for god's sake. I didn't want to cross over the line with the guy in the white van with the music. I just wanted to float.
The root beer float. I just wanted the ice cream.
I made the mistake of befriending the guy. Chris. His ice cream truck looks like typical ice cream trucks. A slightly beaten up white van with peeling ice cream stickers on the side. It looks seedy, like maybe he sleeps on the floor next to the Blow Pops.
Chris is from Armenia which I think is an actual country, not just in Glendale. My mom thinks he's Italian, which is more romantic, so I haven't broken it to her. The first time we chatted it was exciting, the kids had their dollars clutched in their hands, every ice cream looked so good, no one could decide anything. Chris told me he was thinking of getting an incubator, to raise baby chickens. We spent about 3000 dollars on ice cream and the visit ended.
The next time we saw him (the very next day), I struggled out there with three wet kids from the pool. (The kids go into a frenzy when they hear the truck's warbled music. 'I peen puck' Lilly says.) As the kids pick their ice creams, and I say hi to Chris, he reaches out to shake my hand. I shake it gratefully, and then pull my hand back at the appropriate time. He does not let go of my hand. There is the moment of ick. He is holding my hand because he wants to hold my hand because he wants - what does he want? How bout Awkward? I wonder how much awkward costs, and here I am getting it for free. I finally get my hand back, but now I can no longer look Chris in the eye. Why did he do that? Why couldn't we be friends with a regular handshake? Did he have to ruin ice cream??
The last time I saw Chris (I believe it was the next day after that), he wanted me to make a phone call for him. Something about wanting a dozen eggs delivered to a liquor store at 7 pm. I had been watching too much true crime on tv - was he negotiating a drug deal? Why did I have to call for him? Couldn't he call on his ice cream phone? Of course I said I would call, although I went inside with knit brows, and made the half-hearted call to some guy named Kevin who had no idea what I was talking about: "um, my ice cream man wants some eggs or something?"
I don't go out when the ice cream man comes anymore. Since the weird egg phone call and the handshake, I send someone else out with the kids - husband, visiting mom friend, aunt. Anyone but me. The ice cream truck music sounds like a horror movie in general, but now it really gets me.
Summer is almost over. I promise to venture forth and visit Chris in one last brave act before the last day winds down. I will wave from a respectful distance. If he tries to get me to engage in some kind of strange other conversation, I will wave and pretend I've undergone a lobotomy. It's not that I don't want to be friends, or to help people get their eggs or drugs, for god's sake. I didn't want to cross over the line with the guy in the white van with the music. I just wanted to float.
The root beer float. I just wanted the ice cream.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Following the Leader
I can't stop watching the Dog Whisperer. I think I'm in love with Cesar Millan. He has such dark brown eyes. Big, soft dog eyes. I want to go to his dog camp and live in the herd. He'd mix my food with his own hands. I would learn to work in a pack. I would submit.
Seriously, the guy is a genius. He just whips into these people's lives and points out that they have the problem, not the dog. They have to be leaders. The dog is content to follow a strong leader.
I think I have always confused leading with Knowing Everything. Even the writing I'm doing on Ehow, it contributes to this I Know Everything problem. I KNOW I will get in trouble for stealing stuff from the thrift store, and yet I do it. Sometimes.
I think I need a leader, and all these years, I keep looking for that outside leader. I think Cesar is saying TO ME - YOU ARE THE LEADER. But Cesar, can't I come live in your dog camp? Even though you're from Mexico can I still follow you? Wait, he's saying. YOU can do it. YOU are the leader. Not the one who knows everything. But the one who can lead.
I've been really good at being haphazard my whole life. I've perfected it. But I think this is a whole new level I can reach. Staying haphazard (which means never filing anything on my desk) and at the same time, finding diamond-like clarity within my heart. Tight, pure, beautiful silence. Acceptance. Love.
Like the stretched out Hank by the front door, on the cool tile, sleeping. Expecting nothing, happy for everything. Happy just to see your face.
Being the leader doesn't mean you know what you're doing. It just means you are at peace with your own power, and that your weaknesses are what make you shiny, and loveable.
Seriously, the guy is a genius. He just whips into these people's lives and points out that they have the problem, not the dog. They have to be leaders. The dog is content to follow a strong leader.
I think I have always confused leading with Knowing Everything. Even the writing I'm doing on Ehow, it contributes to this I Know Everything problem. I KNOW I will get in trouble for stealing stuff from the thrift store, and yet I do it. Sometimes.
I think I need a leader, and all these years, I keep looking for that outside leader. I think Cesar is saying TO ME - YOU ARE THE LEADER. But Cesar, can't I come live in your dog camp? Even though you're from Mexico can I still follow you? Wait, he's saying. YOU can do it. YOU are the leader. Not the one who knows everything. But the one who can lead.
I've been really good at being haphazard my whole life. I've perfected it. But I think this is a whole new level I can reach. Staying haphazard (which means never filing anything on my desk) and at the same time, finding diamond-like clarity within my heart. Tight, pure, beautiful silence. Acceptance. Love.
Like the stretched out Hank by the front door, on the cool tile, sleeping. Expecting nothing, happy for everything. Happy just to see your face.
Being the leader doesn't mean you know what you're doing. It just means you are at peace with your own power, and that your weaknesses are what make you shiny, and loveable.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Bad Dog Update
My mom's dog and our dog have been kept separated. Turns out they only bust out of the house and go crazy when they're together. So far Hank is acting like he's never even thought of eating small rabbit-like dogs. He even puts himself into the kitchen when we head for the front door, like he knows it's time to go behind the babygate. He must've heard me calling all the rescue people and saying they could come take him.
He's on probation. We'll see.
He's on probation. We'll see.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Hank Eats Neighbor's Dog
When is it time to give up a bad dog?
I'm not sure it's the dog that's bad, although running out the door and over to a tiny dog and grabbing it by the neck is pretty bad. But the circumstances of the household are bad. Doors get left open by kids (especially babies) who have just learned how to use doors, dogs run out - unless the dog is tied to me, I can't watch him 24 hours a day. And aren't the kids more important?
The hell that insued because I took twenty minutes to sit out back with the chickens and talk to Chris long distance on the telephone while the kids watched Sponge Bob. The front door got opened, the dogs ran out. The dogs when they are together, decide sometimes to pick on other small animals. It's freaky. Then I had to deal with Barry yelling at the kid who left the door open, the 8 year old who stands dejected on one foot, then the neighbor who looks like a walking, two hundred pound, once-hearty tumor that has sagged and gathered all around her waistline. I had to take her and her tiny dog who was completely fine to the vet, and listen to her rail at me about my terrible kids, my terrible parenting and my terrible dog, and I took it all because I knew she was scared. I tried to let it just wash past me, even though it hurt, because I know it's awful to have your dog attacked. But I couldn't help feeling angry that the insults she hurled weren't more intelligent, instead everything was base because she is an uneducated racist, anti-gay, child-hating white woman. But I felt terrible about the trauma, and her dog. She was right about that.
The vet pronounced the dog in excellent health, and gave me a bill for a hundred dollars, which I paid quietly. I held the door open for the lady. I helped her into the van. I apologized and agreed with everything she said. I petted the dog.
At her house, she told me she was sorry for all the mean things she said. I told her it was okay. I got home and locked the dogs out back. The dogs may never get out of the house again. I wrote emails to people about adopting out my big dog Hank.
The next day, the whole day I had a crippling headache.
A woman I talked to last year said she could foster Hank until we found him a home. Nathan wants to keep Hank. Keeping Hank would mean every time the door is opened, I have to panic. Every time the door is opened for the next four to six years. It means gates up all the time. I have three kids. Climbing in and out, over and around gates.
I hate what he did, but I still love Hank. That's the sad part. I'm sure we'll figure it out, and do what's right. We're still thinking about it.
I'm not sure it's the dog that's bad, although running out the door and over to a tiny dog and grabbing it by the neck is pretty bad. But the circumstances of the household are bad. Doors get left open by kids (especially babies) who have just learned how to use doors, dogs run out - unless the dog is tied to me, I can't watch him 24 hours a day. And aren't the kids more important?
The hell that insued because I took twenty minutes to sit out back with the chickens and talk to Chris long distance on the telephone while the kids watched Sponge Bob. The front door got opened, the dogs ran out. The dogs when they are together, decide sometimes to pick on other small animals. It's freaky. Then I had to deal with Barry yelling at the kid who left the door open, the 8 year old who stands dejected on one foot, then the neighbor who looks like a walking, two hundred pound, once-hearty tumor that has sagged and gathered all around her waistline. I had to take her and her tiny dog who was completely fine to the vet, and listen to her rail at me about my terrible kids, my terrible parenting and my terrible dog, and I took it all because I knew she was scared. I tried to let it just wash past me, even though it hurt, because I know it's awful to have your dog attacked. But I couldn't help feeling angry that the insults she hurled weren't more intelligent, instead everything was base because she is an uneducated racist, anti-gay, child-hating white woman. But I felt terrible about the trauma, and her dog. She was right about that.
The vet pronounced the dog in excellent health, and gave me a bill for a hundred dollars, which I paid quietly. I held the door open for the lady. I helped her into the van. I apologized and agreed with everything she said. I petted the dog.
At her house, she told me she was sorry for all the mean things she said. I told her it was okay. I got home and locked the dogs out back. The dogs may never get out of the house again. I wrote emails to people about adopting out my big dog Hank.
The next day, the whole day I had a crippling headache.
A woman I talked to last year said she could foster Hank until we found him a home. Nathan wants to keep Hank. Keeping Hank would mean every time the door is opened, I have to panic. Every time the door is opened for the next four to six years. It means gates up all the time. I have three kids. Climbing in and out, over and around gates.
I hate what he did, but I still love Hank. That's the sad part. I'm sure we'll figure it out, and do what's right. We're still thinking about it.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
I feel like I'm not enjoying my life enough. I noticed this after my second hour in the PTA closet with Kathy.
I know, it sounds more interesting than it was. It was actually just a closet with a bunch of junk in it, and me ignoring the baby who was wandering the auditorium, folding all the wooden seats up.
I can't seem to have fun unless I'm over-responsible. Lots of chickens, lots of dogs, lots of kids, lots of work, lots of laundry, lots of yard work. Then I wonder why I don't know how to relax. I think if I relaxed, I might just fall over. No wonder I can't stop watching TLC. All the shows appeal to my zoned out, underused laugh section. The Lady with Giant Legs. That was an actual show. People with Obsessive disorders. Midget couples. Am I actually creating this channel out of my innermost brain desires? Families with 18 children. Fat people. Alcoholics. What's with the religion? Religion is everywhere, and people who are religious dress really badly.
I think the raising of these kids and the worry and the pressure and the love and the cooking just makes me into a giant wad of wad by 11 at night. I sit there sucking in the shows about real people who kill each other. I know why they kill each other. It's the cooking.
Anyway. You wonder why I haven't been writing. I did spend time with Nathan today buying carnival stuff at Smart and Final. And the baby is waiting for me to come snuggle with her, way late at night, even though she's asleep. And Emma in her blue gymnastics outfit, crying because her back hurt, and she's got a new tooth coming in. These kids just keep going. I better get to bed. They're already ahead of me.
I know, it sounds more interesting than it was. It was actually just a closet with a bunch of junk in it, and me ignoring the baby who was wandering the auditorium, folding all the wooden seats up.
I can't seem to have fun unless I'm over-responsible. Lots of chickens, lots of dogs, lots of kids, lots of work, lots of laundry, lots of yard work. Then I wonder why I don't know how to relax. I think if I relaxed, I might just fall over. No wonder I can't stop watching TLC. All the shows appeal to my zoned out, underused laugh section. The Lady with Giant Legs. That was an actual show. People with Obsessive disorders. Midget couples. Am I actually creating this channel out of my innermost brain desires? Families with 18 children. Fat people. Alcoholics. What's with the religion? Religion is everywhere, and people who are religious dress really badly.
I think the raising of these kids and the worry and the pressure and the love and the cooking just makes me into a giant wad of wad by 11 at night. I sit there sucking in the shows about real people who kill each other. I know why they kill each other. It's the cooking.
Anyway. You wonder why I haven't been writing. I did spend time with Nathan today buying carnival stuff at Smart and Final. And the baby is waiting for me to come snuggle with her, way late at night, even though she's asleep. And Emma in her blue gymnastics outfit, crying because her back hurt, and she's got a new tooth coming in. These kids just keep going. I better get to bed. They're already ahead of me.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Hope in a Messy World
My brother is having surgery to have a large tumor removed, along with his kidney. This is the brother I haven't spoken to in years, the one I was closest to growing up, and the one who seemed to be headed down the most troubled road. Dealing with his emergency, and my mom flying back there to deal with his emergency, and my parents trying to talk and get along after all these years...
And then the dog keeps eating the chickens we got to lay eggs, so every night I'd hear that squawking and run out usually too late to save the chicken. Then I'd be picking up chicken pieces and see that the insides of something alive isn't really all that complicated. A few chunky pieces here, connected with some string. We really are all little earth machines, fully functioned, designed to keep going. Until a dog takes us out.
My connections to the people in my family, even the connections that are dusty and look like they are not functioning - are intense. After dealing with my brother for the first time in years, I went home and chopped some bushes out back. I was making a home for the chickens, trying to chop away a huge bush that had overgrown and then died, leaving a wall of dead sticks that needed a chainsaw. All I had was a pair of hand choppers. I found out that you can chop down almost an entire bush by slowly chopping the pieces you can reach until you get to the deep parts, the core. I kept thinking about my brother's guts, and how some doctor was going to be doing the same thing with smaller instruments. I thought about my mom's eye having a bleed, and all those little veins and branches that make up the blood supply to the eye. I chopped while the chickens watched me, poking around, and the dog sat nearby, watching the chickens. A comedic circle of life. Interior and exterior hacking.
All those sticks, the hacking seemed impossible. No way little old me could chop down an entire country of a bush. It would take hours. Days. Lots of scratches. But there was no one else to do it. So I had to keep going.
The kids and I had been trying to make a place for these chickens, even though they hadn't laid us one egg. Apparently I had the loser chickens, the ones that couldn't figure out what they were good for, and yet here I am hacking, just in case. We kept checking, every few hours, every day for that egg.
Today, not in the nest boxes we built, or on the hay we piled neatly, but in the pile of chopped bush, I accidentally saw the egg the new chicken laid for us. In the middle of the haphazard briars and branches. That perfect, huge brown egg. I left it there for the kids to see when we got home from school. By the time the kids got out there, the egg had a white egg next to - our other chicken had laid one right next to it.
There is hope in a messy world.
And then the dog keeps eating the chickens we got to lay eggs, so every night I'd hear that squawking and run out usually too late to save the chicken. Then I'd be picking up chicken pieces and see that the insides of something alive isn't really all that complicated. A few chunky pieces here, connected with some string. We really are all little earth machines, fully functioned, designed to keep going. Until a dog takes us out.
My connections to the people in my family, even the connections that are dusty and look like they are not functioning - are intense. After dealing with my brother for the first time in years, I went home and chopped some bushes out back. I was making a home for the chickens, trying to chop away a huge bush that had overgrown and then died, leaving a wall of dead sticks that needed a chainsaw. All I had was a pair of hand choppers. I found out that you can chop down almost an entire bush by slowly chopping the pieces you can reach until you get to the deep parts, the core. I kept thinking about my brother's guts, and how some doctor was going to be doing the same thing with smaller instruments. I thought about my mom's eye having a bleed, and all those little veins and branches that make up the blood supply to the eye. I chopped while the chickens watched me, poking around, and the dog sat nearby, watching the chickens. A comedic circle of life. Interior and exterior hacking.
All those sticks, the hacking seemed impossible. No way little old me could chop down an entire country of a bush. It would take hours. Days. Lots of scratches. But there was no one else to do it. So I had to keep going.
The kids and I had been trying to make a place for these chickens, even though they hadn't laid us one egg. Apparently I had the loser chickens, the ones that couldn't figure out what they were good for, and yet here I am hacking, just in case. We kept checking, every few hours, every day for that egg.
Today, not in the nest boxes we built, or on the hay we piled neatly, but in the pile of chopped bush, I accidentally saw the egg the new chicken laid for us. In the middle of the haphazard briars and branches. That perfect, huge brown egg. I left it there for the kids to see when we got home from school. By the time the kids got out there, the egg had a white egg next to - our other chicken had laid one right next to it.
There is hope in a messy world.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Anyone Got the Time?
I should save up money and go on trips more. Going to the snow with the kids and Barry had us out someplace new, white and exhausted. Felt so good to see woods, to breathe air without chunks in it. To enjoy playing. Flinging ourselves into the snow.
These kids are the greatest things. The only bad thing is that they keep growing. There is this terrible feeling that everything is temporary, and I know it because I see the marks on the wall getting higher and higher when we measure them. I need a magic potion to keep everything just as it is. Except keep the good, new parts that I like. I guess I just don't want to be left behind. I like me, I just like this family so much. The family feeling is so much bigger than I anticipated. When you have something great, you tend to want to duplicate it. Look at the guy who invented toilets. Now everyone has one, and it's true, they are great. I'm glad he shared.
I guess we only have this minute, speeding by. I have these three comets, trying grab a few shards of their dusty tails. I don't want much. I only want to stop time. I can see that these three tiny people are the greatest things that ever happened to me.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
So There's This Horse
I am a rational person. Except I don't pay the bills right now, Barry does it, which frees me up to thinking and believing that we are rich, buoyant, soaring ahead and above any woes. Not paying the bills is maybe the only thing keeping me sane.
So I ride all these horses for people right now. Riding horses just makes me want to be Amish. I would like to drive a cart to school to drop off the kids. I would like to wear prairie dresses. I would like to sit outside all day and look for Indians.
This is what living in Los Angeles in 2009 is doing to me.
Perhaps I need to start my own living museum. We do have Barry's dad, who is 93. He is a living museum. But I mean more of an interactive one, where you could ride on stuff. Watch candles being made and actual cows give actual milk.
There's a horse this guy is giving away nearby that is maybe the slowest horse I have ever ridden. He is not interested in going anywhere. I don't have time to ride, I have three little kids whom I mostly ignore. But this guy keeps coming back to me. The kids are growing up too fast. Maybe if I get on a very slow horse I can stop time. I think this is my dilemma. My kid life crisis.
Anyway that's all love Jule
So I ride all these horses for people right now. Riding horses just makes me want to be Amish. I would like to drive a cart to school to drop off the kids. I would like to wear prairie dresses. I would like to sit outside all day and look for Indians.
This is what living in Los Angeles in 2009 is doing to me.
Perhaps I need to start my own living museum. We do have Barry's dad, who is 93. He is a living museum. But I mean more of an interactive one, where you could ride on stuff. Watch candles being made and actual cows give actual milk.
There's a horse this guy is giving away nearby that is maybe the slowest horse I have ever ridden. He is not interested in going anywhere. I don't have time to ride, I have three little kids whom I mostly ignore. But this guy keeps coming back to me. The kids are growing up too fast. Maybe if I get on a very slow horse I can stop time. I think this is my dilemma. My kid life crisis.
Anyway that's all love Jule
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
BiblioFiles - New Ezine Publication
Hey, I'm published again. Check out my story "The Big K" in Bibliofiles. It's not bible-y, if that's what you're thinking. Far from it, man.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Full Speed, Iceberg Dead Ahead
I spent part of Christmas Eve in a McDonald's with Greg. Our kids played in the tubey plaything that looped above our heads, and I listened to Greg talk while occasionally berating him, and this is the extent of our relationship. In the past, I would have been sleeping with both Greg AND his lovely wife, but now this is it, Happy Meals and I'll have an order of We Don't Talk About That, please.
I'm not sure where my life went. Well, I mean, I see it, running around in fresh new bodies that I constantly pump full of food, some of the food coming directly fresh from my own body. Okay, so there's where my life went. But my life also kept happening, like an ongoing process, a book flipping past while I was tied up in the corner unable to move or participate, and every other part of me began to rust and break off. I used to be creative. I used to write and get fired for writing about people at my jobs. Now I troll Craig's List for horses. I think I'm looking for a fast ride out of here. The furrier the better. I think I don't want to go very far. But I definitely want to go out cowboy style.
I live in this horse neighborhood (neigh borhood, get it?) and it's like being in a candy store with no money. These people with horses are just RIDING them, right in my face. Where do they get their money? Most of these people can't even conjugate a verb, and yet they're THRIVING in the horse ownership.
And there's this script I started ten years ago about past lives, also tied to my tremendous need to be Amish without the religion, to move back to a simpler time, to drive a living animal not an engine. I'm kind of dying to write it again, to solve it. It's still there waiting for me to finish with all these kids and get back to it. Maybe I have to wait until Barry and I move to some rural town in Tennessee where we can actually afford to live, and then he and I can actually work out a story beginning to end. Oh, and also have a conversation. Just in time for our tragic deaths of old age.
I guess these are New Year's Resolutions. Simplified as this:
Horse
Write
Talk to Husband
of course love those kids
It's all love. Just getting to all these things takes some kind of genius.
I'm not sure where my life went. Well, I mean, I see it, running around in fresh new bodies that I constantly pump full of food, some of the food coming directly fresh from my own body. Okay, so there's where my life went. But my life also kept happening, like an ongoing process, a book flipping past while I was tied up in the corner unable to move or participate, and every other part of me began to rust and break off. I used to be creative. I used to write and get fired for writing about people at my jobs. Now I troll Craig's List for horses. I think I'm looking for a fast ride out of here. The furrier the better. I think I don't want to go very far. But I definitely want to go out cowboy style.
I live in this horse neighborhood (neigh borhood, get it?) and it's like being in a candy store with no money. These people with horses are just RIDING them, right in my face. Where do they get their money? Most of these people can't even conjugate a verb, and yet they're THRIVING in the horse ownership.
And there's this script I started ten years ago about past lives, also tied to my tremendous need to be Amish without the religion, to move back to a simpler time, to drive a living animal not an engine. I'm kind of dying to write it again, to solve it. It's still there waiting for me to finish with all these kids and get back to it. Maybe I have to wait until Barry and I move to some rural town in Tennessee where we can actually afford to live, and then he and I can actually work out a story beginning to end. Oh, and also have a conversation. Just in time for our tragic deaths of old age.
I guess these are New Year's Resolutions. Simplified as this:
Horse
Write
Talk to Husband
of course love those kids
It's all love. Just getting to all these things takes some kind of genius.
Friday, December 19, 2008
"Out of the Fire," short story
Out of the Fire
Leaving is the word that hung most in the curtains. I'm leaving - he said it, he felt it. He was going off to occupy space someplace where I was not. Because I was not.
The couch groaned for no reason. I hadn't moved. Like a deer, if I froze maybe the world would freeze with me. Maybe for one second that frightening ripping sound reality makes when it's moving in - maybe the room will melt into a pocket of milk. Maybe.
His jean jacket had the heart pinned on the front from when he was helping my brother fix his truck. I had found it in the dirt and pinned it on him. It was tiny like an ant's brain.
He could take that shirt. It filled me with sadness and empathy for the next girl, lone¬some on the bus bench who lent him a quarter for a phone call. Now I just need to know your number, he'd cock his head, hair falling in his easy chair eyes.
That shirt stained his body. It was tattered like something a fireman rescued out of the fire only to realize in the light that it wasn't really worth it.
"I'm not taking anything," were his words.
What happened to the sleigh rides like on the backs of magazines and snowy nights and friends we could've met and lost together, communal defeat at opening up to other similarly wretched human beings, leaving parties alone, but together alone.
Ache, then, is the salad wilting on the wooden bowl, against the silent onion. Sighing, the dinner in fragments of finished, and me there mixed in with some flies and him in motion, leaving.
I erased him from where he stood in the doorway, or maybe he did that. My heart dripped to chalk dust all around my feet.
I sat at the table for years. My sister came to help clean up the mess. I hadn't seen the part where all the things I liked in him would go off packed in a denim jacket and one pair of jeans and the wallet with the picture of Wayne Newton on it. How could he carry so much of me in there, so much of me willingly went along with him.
Don't go.
My sister murmured and touched my shoulder and I smelled the dishsoap and saw the sparkly wooden bowls and silverware clean in her eyes.
What about that little orange kitten, and Christmas, and our voices in small town supermarkets, and the idiocy of it all, the void void that wasn't as deep as it is now, cracked leather and the hay we fed the horses, your smell when you passed me running and those two cowboys hitchhiking in the sunset and our babies with their gurgling promising spittle.
You said you weren't taking anything.
Leaving is the word that hung most in the curtains. I'm leaving - he said it, he felt it. He was going off to occupy space someplace where I was not. Because I was not.
The couch groaned for no reason. I hadn't moved. Like a deer, if I froze maybe the world would freeze with me. Maybe for one second that frightening ripping sound reality makes when it's moving in - maybe the room will melt into a pocket of milk. Maybe.
His jean jacket had the heart pinned on the front from when he was helping my brother fix his truck. I had found it in the dirt and pinned it on him. It was tiny like an ant's brain.
He could take that shirt. It filled me with sadness and empathy for the next girl, lone¬some on the bus bench who lent him a quarter for a phone call. Now I just need to know your number, he'd cock his head, hair falling in his easy chair eyes.
That shirt stained his body. It was tattered like something a fireman rescued out of the fire only to realize in the light that it wasn't really worth it.
"I'm not taking anything," were his words.
What happened to the sleigh rides like on the backs of magazines and snowy nights and friends we could've met and lost together, communal defeat at opening up to other similarly wretched human beings, leaving parties alone, but together alone.
Ache, then, is the salad wilting on the wooden bowl, against the silent onion. Sighing, the dinner in fragments of finished, and me there mixed in with some flies and him in motion, leaving.
I erased him from where he stood in the doorway, or maybe he did that. My heart dripped to chalk dust all around my feet.
I sat at the table for years. My sister came to help clean up the mess. I hadn't seen the part where all the things I liked in him would go off packed in a denim jacket and one pair of jeans and the wallet with the picture of Wayne Newton on it. How could he carry so much of me in there, so much of me willingly went along with him.
Don't go.
My sister murmured and touched my shoulder and I smelled the dishsoap and saw the sparkly wooden bowls and silverware clean in her eyes.
What about that little orange kitten, and Christmas, and our voices in small town supermarkets, and the idiocy of it all, the void void that wasn't as deep as it is now, cracked leather and the hay we fed the horses, your smell when you passed me running and those two cowboys hitchhiking in the sunset and our babies with their gurgling promising spittle.
You said you weren't taking anything.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Fun Takes Too Long
Yes, I've stopped having fun. I just don't have time for it. I have to only do things that make money, and do them all in the two hours the baby sleeps at naptime. I used to nap WITH the babies. Things have devolved.
Craig's List, my mistress, has set me up with some cool things, though. I write articles for a company I found on CL, I've gotten countless family bunnies off the site, and now I'm exercising horses from people I've met on the site. I can't believe people are paying me to ride, it's the greatest thing. It's almost as good as getting paid to travel, and this is the closest to traveling I can do in two hours at naptime.
I sneak out when Lilly is asleep in old, dirty pants and boots and meet a big old stallion called Art, who is out of shape and needs someone to ride him. I hadn't ridden regularly since I had the kids, and my confidence was pretty low, but the lady was PAYING me to ride. Luckily he's been nice to me. We sweat and I haven't fallen off even though I'm old and would probably break a hip or something. Horse people are strange, horses are always better than their people. People usually have horses to try and get away from something - to ride off. To kick off the modern dust that collects and causes anxiety.
This week I start riding with a lady up some trails nearby. Should be fun, if I can manage to jam all my relaxation into an hour. I love it all, the juggling is difficult. But horses are taking me somewhere, maybe like writing, I don't know where, but I just can't stop.
Craig's List, my mistress, has set me up with some cool things, though. I write articles for a company I found on CL, I've gotten countless family bunnies off the site, and now I'm exercising horses from people I've met on the site. I can't believe people are paying me to ride, it's the greatest thing. It's almost as good as getting paid to travel, and this is the closest to traveling I can do in two hours at naptime.
I sneak out when Lilly is asleep in old, dirty pants and boots and meet a big old stallion called Art, who is out of shape and needs someone to ride him. I hadn't ridden regularly since I had the kids, and my confidence was pretty low, but the lady was PAYING me to ride. Luckily he's been nice to me. We sweat and I haven't fallen off even though I'm old and would probably break a hip or something. Horse people are strange, horses are always better than their people. People usually have horses to try and get away from something - to ride off. To kick off the modern dust that collects and causes anxiety.
This week I start riding with a lady up some trails nearby. Should be fun, if I can manage to jam all my relaxation into an hour. I love it all, the juggling is difficult. But horses are taking me somewhere, maybe like writing, I don't know where, but I just can't stop.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Leftovers
I decided to try and figure out my relationship with my dad, after thirty years of awkwardness. Awkwardness on my part. He's always been great to me, but there's been this overhanging shadow, yeah he's great, but he left, man. Don't trust him.
I guess now that my life is crowded with kids, I have huge bills, and a husband I couldn't pay to leave me, I felt comfortable enough to tentatively poke at this long relationship with a very long stick. I had nothing to lose.
When your dad leaves when you're nine years old, you spend alot of time wondering how your dad could leave someone as great as you. You figure you must not be that great. You figure you weren't trying hard enough, you weren't grateful enough, you weren't smart enough. There was something you were not doing. The mind at nine years old is pretty straightforward. There's no adult romantic life to take into consideration. You could give a rat's ass about what he actually was doing, what his actual adult reasons were for leaving one relationship for another. All you figure is that, for whatever reason, you weren't good enough. Something else was better.
And the truth is, you weren't good enough. Cause a nine year old doesn't have any power over a thirty year old, even if it is your dad. He loves you, but not like you love him. You love him like he is the only man in the universe. Cause he IS, the only one that belongs to you. My dad was still shopping. In the cruelest sense, he had already bought everything, but he was a grown up and he was still shopping for a better fit. I happened to be one of the packages from the first shopping trip. So he could move on, but to me, he was the whole store. There wasn't the possibility of any other situation. I didn't want anything else. Why would I? I was just living in the wilds of my childhood, expecting everything to stay cozy, predictable, warm.
They say you have nothing to do with the relationship between your parents, but you are a product of the relationship. You are a vital piece of that puzzle. So when one parent decides to leave, even if they are responsible (visits, overnights, financial support), there's still a huge hole. The hole is their familiar face who isn't there anymore, who belongs to you and your house. Who stays and gets your pajamas out, and tells you to brush your teeth. It's not the same in a new house, in His house. He belongs to you, the everyday you. Your parents are the cement of your young life. When my mom became the only one left, things were suddenly shaky. I had to fiercely protect her, because what if she decided to leave?
So, back to 1976. My dad started a new family and had my sister. My brothers and I felt like the loser first family, dumped by the wayside. My mom was devastated, and her sadness leaked all over us. She had no ability to shield us from her emotional upheaval. Even though her sadness hurt us, we learned that love was powerful, and that loving someone totally meant being a mess when they left. Because you feel the loss. That people, and connections, have meaning. It gave me a sense that love was completely scary, and that being vulnerable was worthwhile if you were willing to risk losing everything.
Tragedy, but beautiful from an adult perspective. Of course I spent most of my twenties trashing every relationship I got in. No way would anyone get that close to me. Yet I longed for connection. Barry was the only person who said, "Hey, what the hell are you doing." He thought my heart was all scarred over, but that underneath was a clean, pure, loving person. He talked to me until that person would slide inches out into the light. I'm two inches out so far. It's been seventeen years since I met Barry.
I sort of came at my dad sideways, a few weeks ago, to talk about everything. I wasn't sure how we would even talk about it. But he said some pretty wonderful stuff. He said he needed to apologize to the nine year old, and to the adult me. He said he probably couldn't make it up to the nine year old. He said a bunch of stuff that made me cry, but mostly he said he wanted to keep talking. It's hard to not feel pathetic, because it's like the dog that's been kicked, going back avidly to the dangerous person that kicked him, looking for love. Not stupidly, just vulnerably.
I'm not sure how much I want to know about those times, I don't actually want to know much about why my parents split up, or how they felt. I just want to not feel bad about it anymore. I want to help the little kid who got hurt, and I want to move forward. I'm tired of carrying around that person who is scared of everyone and of every conflict. I have so much joy in my real, true life that I want to blaze forward and drop the garageful of leftovers I don't need.
The scariest part, though, is feeling all the pain of being nine years old, and having my heart cracked. What I'm trying to learn is that it WAS worth it to love my dad, then and now. It was worth it to be broken, because my heart is still big. Somewhere in me, buried, I knew that I was worth every minute of my dad's time. So I sort through the wreckage and find his hand.
I have my mom's, and I can have his too.
I guess now that my life is crowded with kids, I have huge bills, and a husband I couldn't pay to leave me, I felt comfortable enough to tentatively poke at this long relationship with a very long stick. I had nothing to lose.
When your dad leaves when you're nine years old, you spend alot of time wondering how your dad could leave someone as great as you. You figure you must not be that great. You figure you weren't trying hard enough, you weren't grateful enough, you weren't smart enough. There was something you were not doing. The mind at nine years old is pretty straightforward. There's no adult romantic life to take into consideration. You could give a rat's ass about what he actually was doing, what his actual adult reasons were for leaving one relationship for another. All you figure is that, for whatever reason, you weren't good enough. Something else was better.
And the truth is, you weren't good enough. Cause a nine year old doesn't have any power over a thirty year old, even if it is your dad. He loves you, but not like you love him. You love him like he is the only man in the universe. Cause he IS, the only one that belongs to you. My dad was still shopping. In the cruelest sense, he had already bought everything, but he was a grown up and he was still shopping for a better fit. I happened to be one of the packages from the first shopping trip. So he could move on, but to me, he was the whole store. There wasn't the possibility of any other situation. I didn't want anything else. Why would I? I was just living in the wilds of my childhood, expecting everything to stay cozy, predictable, warm.
They say you have nothing to do with the relationship between your parents, but you are a product of the relationship. You are a vital piece of that puzzle. So when one parent decides to leave, even if they are responsible (visits, overnights, financial support), there's still a huge hole. The hole is their familiar face who isn't there anymore, who belongs to you and your house. Who stays and gets your pajamas out, and tells you to brush your teeth. It's not the same in a new house, in His house. He belongs to you, the everyday you. Your parents are the cement of your young life. When my mom became the only one left, things were suddenly shaky. I had to fiercely protect her, because what if she decided to leave?
So, back to 1976. My dad started a new family and had my sister. My brothers and I felt like the loser first family, dumped by the wayside. My mom was devastated, and her sadness leaked all over us. She had no ability to shield us from her emotional upheaval. Even though her sadness hurt us, we learned that love was powerful, and that loving someone totally meant being a mess when they left. Because you feel the loss. That people, and connections, have meaning. It gave me a sense that love was completely scary, and that being vulnerable was worthwhile if you were willing to risk losing everything.
Tragedy, but beautiful from an adult perspective. Of course I spent most of my twenties trashing every relationship I got in. No way would anyone get that close to me. Yet I longed for connection. Barry was the only person who said, "Hey, what the hell are you doing." He thought my heart was all scarred over, but that underneath was a clean, pure, loving person. He talked to me until that person would slide inches out into the light. I'm two inches out so far. It's been seventeen years since I met Barry.
I sort of came at my dad sideways, a few weeks ago, to talk about everything. I wasn't sure how we would even talk about it. But he said some pretty wonderful stuff. He said he needed to apologize to the nine year old, and to the adult me. He said he probably couldn't make it up to the nine year old. He said a bunch of stuff that made me cry, but mostly he said he wanted to keep talking. It's hard to not feel pathetic, because it's like the dog that's been kicked, going back avidly to the dangerous person that kicked him, looking for love. Not stupidly, just vulnerably.
I'm not sure how much I want to know about those times, I don't actually want to know much about why my parents split up, or how they felt. I just want to not feel bad about it anymore. I want to help the little kid who got hurt, and I want to move forward. I'm tired of carrying around that person who is scared of everyone and of every conflict. I have so much joy in my real, true life that I want to blaze forward and drop the garageful of leftovers I don't need.
The scariest part, though, is feeling all the pain of being nine years old, and having my heart cracked. What I'm trying to learn is that it WAS worth it to love my dad, then and now. It was worth it to be broken, because my heart is still big. Somewhere in me, buried, I knew that I was worth every minute of my dad's time. So I sort through the wreckage and find his hand.
I have my mom's, and I can have his too.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
From "Open Wider," my short story collection "The Big K"
The Big K
I rushed there late, some shirt thrown on, a jacket he had given me. A girl I didn't know was making blue¬berry blintzes on the stove wearing only a long Japanese pajama top.
I thought of the party at this place months back where he had stood on the balcony with his new girlfriend, and I left because I couldn't imagine him fucking her while I was still alive. And he had grown a moustache and he hadn't let me know.
The mystery girl said: "You know the only other person who brought fruit salad was--" My heart squirmed shut like a baby's screaming eyelid.
He appeared with that harmless look. Not the true him. The truce him. He smiled and suddenly there was a Cape Cod house with a wooden swing and Campbell's soup steam coating the windows.
"You look beautiful," he said casually. I know he could see the blood, pouring out of my face. He stood close to my leg. "I see the moustache," I mentioned. " - you like it?"
I paused. "You look like Jackie Gleason." "I think I look like a young Howard Hughes." "Smokey and The Bandit. 1976."
He picked at my fruit salad, pulling out a coconut-covered strawberry. He pushed between my knees and nuzzled my cheek with his nose.
He kissed me, deep, and I bit him and he pulled away and said "Jesus" admirably, and we drifted apart. After many beers, we ended up fighting like convicts at a prison riot. I didn't see him for awhile after that. Once briefly when I was dating that guy he referred to as "The Cuban Crisis." And then again when his grandmother died, and he told me he was rich. Two years dribbled by and I heard he was living ten minutes from me, serving a sentence with some girl named Nina he met at a U2 concert. I called and hung up on their machine enough to cause a disturbance in their relationship. Then he called me. "They're putting the big 'K' up." "So?" "I thought there'd be some sort of ritual you'd want to start." We met in the K-Mart parking lot equal distance from both of our houses. I got in his car. We watched human-size men lift a superhuman-sized red letter. The old, parched-orange "K" lay shattered and emaciated against the building, begging for change.
"You can't just call me," I said finally. "I dumped Nina. She's gone." He picked his shoes. I felt like my bobbed hair matched my bobbed teeth. "Let's move away." "Nobody moves away." "Let's move someplace that has plant sales at the church parking lot on Saturdays. Lots of cheap baked goods, maybe a girl scout for extra zest." He picked a flake off his tarnished tennis shoe. Placed it on my leg. “I don't want that." "I don't either."
I moved away to a place featuring seasons. I started writing a book I titled "I Reached Paradise But My Emotional Luggage Was Forwarded to The Nether World." I drove around in what I considered my pajamas, seeing trees and deer signs. Nothing in Spanish spray painted on the back of a van. No train tracks splitting angry cement. I called him. "The world here bursts with light and life." "I'll have what you're having, with a twist." "Life here is unreal. In Los Angeles, life was unreal in the crack addict way. Wake up in the backseat of an abandoned car under a bridge you don't know with your cracked teeth in your hand way. All those sirens blaring, no one could hear a word I was saying, not even me."
"I gotta go," he said.
"But you're not really living," I said.
"Some of us open whole new K-marts," he said wisely, "Some of us only replace the Big K on the outside."
I could hear his latest conquest giggling at cartoons in the background.
"She's of legal age," he added, reassuringly.
I wondered how much his hair had changed in my absence.
I moved back. I saw him at a tennis club, months later. He had on little green socks. He twirled the racket around on its string.
"Where's your girlfriend?" I asked.
"Daycare."
He toted a phony tan.
"I don't really miss you," he added.
He sent me pictures of his wedding. She wore a great big puffed veil, globbed like frosting on top of bad cupcakes.
"That's to hide the scar," he scrawled on the back.
A few years later they were thinking of having a baby. It was a Saturday and he was walking down Fairfax and caught sight of their reflections in a black bank window near Farmer's Market.
"I knew by the end of the block," he told me on the phone from Tahoe. "I couldn't have a baby with her, she was an IDIOT."
He paid for my train trip to Tahoe, where we spent six days hurling ice cubes from the third floor balcony onto tourists below.
“I could never marry you," he said after three days without a shower and killing a bottle of tequila in the hotel bar. "You're not serious enough."
"And besides you're married," I added.
"She was a phase."
I moved to Prague. He called from his car phone.
"You can't stay there," he whined.
"I certainly can."
"No one's in Prague anymore."
I looked out the window at people on the street.
"Are you working with orphans?" He interrogated. His voice via satellite.
"Maybe."
"I bought a Porsche."
When I got back from Prague he called me every day. I ran into him at a discount department store in Studio City. I was buying wood. He was buying a huge can of beans.
He cried.
We moved in together. He cried quite a bit as I took over drawers previously assigned to me the last time.
"I don't think it'll work," he cried nervously.
I rubbed his arm, consolingly. "I don't care what you think."
Years later we watched the Big "K" come down because of earthquake damage. We drank champagne out of Dixie cups on the hood of my car.
"That's never gonna happen to us," he said, and watched a woman pass us in spandex.
"Not ever."
I rushed there late, some shirt thrown on, a jacket he had given me. A girl I didn't know was making blue¬berry blintzes on the stove wearing only a long Japanese pajama top.
I thought of the party at this place months back where he had stood on the balcony with his new girlfriend, and I left because I couldn't imagine him fucking her while I was still alive. And he had grown a moustache and he hadn't let me know.
The mystery girl said: "You know the only other person who brought fruit salad was--" My heart squirmed shut like a baby's screaming eyelid.
He appeared with that harmless look. Not the true him. The truce him. He smiled and suddenly there was a Cape Cod house with a wooden swing and Campbell's soup steam coating the windows.
"You look beautiful," he said casually. I know he could see the blood, pouring out of my face. He stood close to my leg. "I see the moustache," I mentioned. " - you like it?"
I paused. "You look like Jackie Gleason." "I think I look like a young Howard Hughes." "Smokey and The Bandit. 1976."
He picked at my fruit salad, pulling out a coconut-covered strawberry. He pushed between my knees and nuzzled my cheek with his nose.
He kissed me, deep, and I bit him and he pulled away and said "Jesus" admirably, and we drifted apart. After many beers, we ended up fighting like convicts at a prison riot. I didn't see him for awhile after that. Once briefly when I was dating that guy he referred to as "The Cuban Crisis." And then again when his grandmother died, and he told me he was rich. Two years dribbled by and I heard he was living ten minutes from me, serving a sentence with some girl named Nina he met at a U2 concert. I called and hung up on their machine enough to cause a disturbance in their relationship. Then he called me. "They're putting the big 'K' up." "So?" "I thought there'd be some sort of ritual you'd want to start." We met in the K-Mart parking lot equal distance from both of our houses. I got in his car. We watched human-size men lift a superhuman-sized red letter. The old, parched-orange "K" lay shattered and emaciated against the building, begging for change.
"You can't just call me," I said finally. "I dumped Nina. She's gone." He picked his shoes. I felt like my bobbed hair matched my bobbed teeth. "Let's move away." "Nobody moves away." "Let's move someplace that has plant sales at the church parking lot on Saturdays. Lots of cheap baked goods, maybe a girl scout for extra zest." He picked a flake off his tarnished tennis shoe. Placed it on my leg. “I don't want that." "I don't either."
I moved away to a place featuring seasons. I started writing a book I titled "I Reached Paradise But My Emotional Luggage Was Forwarded to The Nether World." I drove around in what I considered my pajamas, seeing trees and deer signs. Nothing in Spanish spray painted on the back of a van. No train tracks splitting angry cement. I called him. "The world here bursts with light and life." "I'll have what you're having, with a twist." "Life here is unreal. In Los Angeles, life was unreal in the crack addict way. Wake up in the backseat of an abandoned car under a bridge you don't know with your cracked teeth in your hand way. All those sirens blaring, no one could hear a word I was saying, not even me."
"I gotta go," he said.
"But you're not really living," I said.
"Some of us open whole new K-marts," he said wisely, "Some of us only replace the Big K on the outside."
I could hear his latest conquest giggling at cartoons in the background.
"She's of legal age," he added, reassuringly.
I wondered how much his hair had changed in my absence.
I moved back. I saw him at a tennis club, months later. He had on little green socks. He twirled the racket around on its string.
"Where's your girlfriend?" I asked.
"Daycare."
He toted a phony tan.
"I don't really miss you," he added.
He sent me pictures of his wedding. She wore a great big puffed veil, globbed like frosting on top of bad cupcakes.
"That's to hide the scar," he scrawled on the back.
A few years later they were thinking of having a baby. It was a Saturday and he was walking down Fairfax and caught sight of their reflections in a black bank window near Farmer's Market.
"I knew by the end of the block," he told me on the phone from Tahoe. "I couldn't have a baby with her, she was an IDIOT."
He paid for my train trip to Tahoe, where we spent six days hurling ice cubes from the third floor balcony onto tourists below.
“I could never marry you," he said after three days without a shower and killing a bottle of tequila in the hotel bar. "You're not serious enough."
"And besides you're married," I added.
"She was a phase."
I moved to Prague. He called from his car phone.
"You can't stay there," he whined.
"I certainly can."
"No one's in Prague anymore."
I looked out the window at people on the street.
"Are you working with orphans?" He interrogated. His voice via satellite.
"Maybe."
"I bought a Porsche."
When I got back from Prague he called me every day. I ran into him at a discount department store in Studio City. I was buying wood. He was buying a huge can of beans.
He cried.
We moved in together. He cried quite a bit as I took over drawers previously assigned to me the last time.
"I don't think it'll work," he cried nervously.
I rubbed his arm, consolingly. "I don't care what you think."
Years later we watched the Big "K" come down because of earthquake damage. We drank champagne out of Dixie cups on the hood of my car.
"That's never gonna happen to us," he said, and watched a woman pass us in spandex.
"Not ever."
Monday, June 09, 2008
"A Guy Named Red Doesn't Like Me" (Published in Connections Magazine!)
A Guy Named Red Doesn't Like Me
“My husband left me,” she spoke breathlessly. “I’m free to be with you now.”
Sally looked at him with blond ambition.
Red paused, hovering over the ’69 Pinto engine he was fixing as ardently as a succulent picnic. Red twisted a greasy fingernail.
“…I wasn’t waiting for you.”
Sally Swift stared at him. She was pretty, and safe, and almost fifty. Red’s shop continued on in the background like it had since he started there in the fourth grade.
She didn’t feel too Swift. She was stripped. Standing there next to the car like a giant question mark. There were no words. The words about her had fled and she was a hanging sentence of abandoned punctuation.
A guy they called Monkey was getting a huge tool off the rack in the background, and paused to pull the jumpsuit out of the crack in his ass.
The noise of the shop engulfed her.
“Christ, Sally,” Red looked at her, frazzled. He had a freckled face and freckled eyes. His mom said he got them in his eyes from staring in the sun too long. His brother Philip said the spots indicated the rot in Red’s brain seeping through. Philip was a doctor.
Sally stammered. “Well. What did you think I’d be doing in Elkton? Nobody comes to Elkton. Why else did you think I’d be here?”
Red looked hopefully strained. He shrugged.
“That’s it?” Her voice rose.
“I thought maybe you got sick of Miami. Came home.”
“Miami is home. Fourteen years does that to a person.”
“You lived here more ‘n fourteen years.” He adjusted a nut.
“Not fourteen adult years.”
“Where’d you buy those,” he muttered.
She was experiencing feeling returning to her face, and it was all angry.
“What happened to Whitney,” he looked at her steadily, holding a dripping oil funnel.
The image of Whitney flashed in both their heads. A dyed-blond five foot Cuban who owned several successful car washes. Sally had married him for the drugs. He was Cuban. It was Miami. It was the ‘70’s.
“He goes by the name Swifty now,” she said. He had changed his name from Jerry Whitney to Whitney Swift when he married her. He said it was a Cuban tradition. Turned out it was a Jerry Whitney tradition. God knows how many wives he’d had before her that he ended up with the name Jerry Whitney by the time they hooked up.
“He changed his name to Whitney Swift for tax reasons,” Sally said to the carburetor. Red looked at her sorrowfully. It didn’t matter that he had recently gone by Swift, she thought. What mattered was that he had recently gone.
“Why’d he leave?” Red was wiping his hands on the filthy front of his bib apron. Underneath the grime was “Kiss the Cook” but only the “ook” was visible.
For tax reasons, she felt like saying.
Sally wandered downtown Elkton. The streets were small and cramped, like Napoleon’s corpse. Nothing looked familiar.
A Korean man sprayed off the sidewalk in front of his overpriced fruit stand and deli.
She looked at the sun and thought of Red. She never considered Red wouldn’t want her. How could he not be waiting for her? Everyone was waiting for her. Herself included. Hanging in the balance until she decided to pick them up again.
She bought a loaf of bread and a small container of real orange juice. The Korean complained about breaking a fifty at nine o’clock in the morning. She focused on his five hundred-dollar shoes.
She sat on the bus bench and ate the heel of the bread. It’s all I’m worth, she thought.
The Korean resumed hosing and the fallout from the water was misting around her head.
Her mother would say this was an opportunity, not a crisis. Whenever you don’t know what you’re doing, something miraculous is about to happen, she’d said.
Her mother’s miracle turned out to be renal failure, and she had died like a lawn dart falling to Earth.
Sally dug to the bottom of the bread and got the other heel. She ate it without the aid of the orange juice. It was stale and mealy. Now I only have the good part left, she thought, drunk on starch.
She washed down the last of it. The orange juice tasted baptismal. As she sat looking at traffic, this feeling passed. She was surrounded by exhaust and the sound of skinny city trees trying to grow fenced in in cement. Real life background music.
There’s nothing here for me, she thought. My life is bleak.
She thought about Red and what a stupid name that was. No wonder he worked in a garage. What other job could he get. When Philip was six and Red was three, Philip’s teeth were so bucked he couldn’t say “Fred” so he called his brother “’Red” and it stayed that way. Now Philip was a doctor in the East Indies and Red fixed cars two miles from where he had first jerked off. Names could entrap people. This is what my life has come to – a guy named Red doesn’t like me? I’ve gotta be destined for more, she thought.
Sally tossed the empty o.j. container in the wire trash basket. At the moment, her trash was on top.
Lots of people had sat on this bus bench, she thought. Unhappy with where they were, or they wouldn’t be waiting to pay someone to drive them someplace else. Being desperate is how it felt right now. Being driven is how it would seem from the future, looking back.
She sat on the bus bench with her whole loaf of good bread and waited for a miracle.
“My husband left me,” she spoke breathlessly. “I’m free to be with you now.”
Sally looked at him with blond ambition.
Red paused, hovering over the ’69 Pinto engine he was fixing as ardently as a succulent picnic. Red twisted a greasy fingernail.
“…I wasn’t waiting for you.”
Sally Swift stared at him. She was pretty, and safe, and almost fifty. Red’s shop continued on in the background like it had since he started there in the fourth grade.
She didn’t feel too Swift. She was stripped. Standing there next to the car like a giant question mark. There were no words. The words about her had fled and she was a hanging sentence of abandoned punctuation.
A guy they called Monkey was getting a huge tool off the rack in the background, and paused to pull the jumpsuit out of the crack in his ass.
The noise of the shop engulfed her.
“Christ, Sally,” Red looked at her, frazzled. He had a freckled face and freckled eyes. His mom said he got them in his eyes from staring in the sun too long. His brother Philip said the spots indicated the rot in Red’s brain seeping through. Philip was a doctor.
Sally stammered. “Well. What did you think I’d be doing in Elkton? Nobody comes to Elkton. Why else did you think I’d be here?”
Red looked hopefully strained. He shrugged.
“That’s it?” Her voice rose.
“I thought maybe you got sick of Miami. Came home.”
“Miami is home. Fourteen years does that to a person.”
“You lived here more ‘n fourteen years.” He adjusted a nut.
“Not fourteen adult years.”
“Where’d you buy those,” he muttered.
She was experiencing feeling returning to her face, and it was all angry.
“What happened to Whitney,” he looked at her steadily, holding a dripping oil funnel.
The image of Whitney flashed in both their heads. A dyed-blond five foot Cuban who owned several successful car washes. Sally had married him for the drugs. He was Cuban. It was Miami. It was the ‘70’s.
“He goes by the name Swifty now,” she said. He had changed his name from Jerry Whitney to Whitney Swift when he married her. He said it was a Cuban tradition. Turned out it was a Jerry Whitney tradition. God knows how many wives he’d had before her that he ended up with the name Jerry Whitney by the time they hooked up.
“He changed his name to Whitney Swift for tax reasons,” Sally said to the carburetor. Red looked at her sorrowfully. It didn’t matter that he had recently gone by Swift, she thought. What mattered was that he had recently gone.
“Why’d he leave?” Red was wiping his hands on the filthy front of his bib apron. Underneath the grime was “Kiss the Cook” but only the “ook” was visible.
For tax reasons, she felt like saying.
Sally wandered downtown Elkton. The streets were small and cramped, like Napoleon’s corpse. Nothing looked familiar.
A Korean man sprayed off the sidewalk in front of his overpriced fruit stand and deli.
She looked at the sun and thought of Red. She never considered Red wouldn’t want her. How could he not be waiting for her? Everyone was waiting for her. Herself included. Hanging in the balance until she decided to pick them up again.
She bought a loaf of bread and a small container of real orange juice. The Korean complained about breaking a fifty at nine o’clock in the morning. She focused on his five hundred-dollar shoes.
She sat on the bus bench and ate the heel of the bread. It’s all I’m worth, she thought.
The Korean resumed hosing and the fallout from the water was misting around her head.
Her mother would say this was an opportunity, not a crisis. Whenever you don’t know what you’re doing, something miraculous is about to happen, she’d said.
Her mother’s miracle turned out to be renal failure, and she had died like a lawn dart falling to Earth.
Sally dug to the bottom of the bread and got the other heel. She ate it without the aid of the orange juice. It was stale and mealy. Now I only have the good part left, she thought, drunk on starch.
She washed down the last of it. The orange juice tasted baptismal. As she sat looking at traffic, this feeling passed. She was surrounded by exhaust and the sound of skinny city trees trying to grow fenced in in cement. Real life background music.
There’s nothing here for me, she thought. My life is bleak.
She thought about Red and what a stupid name that was. No wonder he worked in a garage. What other job could he get. When Philip was six and Red was three, Philip’s teeth were so bucked he couldn’t say “Fred” so he called his brother “’Red” and it stayed that way. Now Philip was a doctor in the East Indies and Red fixed cars two miles from where he had first jerked off. Names could entrap people. This is what my life has come to – a guy named Red doesn’t like me? I’ve gotta be destined for more, she thought.
Sally tossed the empty o.j. container in the wire trash basket. At the moment, her trash was on top.
Lots of people had sat on this bus bench, she thought. Unhappy with where they were, or they wouldn’t be waiting to pay someone to drive them someplace else. Being desperate is how it felt right now. Being driven is how it would seem from the future, looking back.
She sat on the bus bench with her whole loaf of good bread and waited for a miracle.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
My Right Breast is a Lesbian
I keep having trouble with my right boob. I'm nursing, and all throughout all my nursinghoods, all three babies, this boob is the one who works the hardest. It's also the one that has been the quitter. Loves to get things like mastitis, clogged ducts, milk blisters, you name it, this boob will take it on.
I was reading this "Eat, Pray, Love" book about finding true self and being responsible for the things and paths in your life. One of those books you want to throw through the wall and can't stop reading cause you hope it has all the answers. Once I was done with it, I was thinking (during the witch doctor section and voo doo reasons for things) that my right boob must represent all the things I've stuffed down since having kids. Things that have broken down. Things I don't get to use. You know, like bad words, relationships with other adults, going to the movies, being a lesbian. I was never full-fledged, there was no pinning ceremony or committee decision, but I teetered on the brink. So I think my boob clings barbarically to those lifestyle choices left behind. Here's a little blister to remind you of what you're not. Don't forget, chickie. There's so much more out there.
I try to nurse the boob back to health. Heh heh. Get it. There's so much more in the actual life that I'm actually having that it's hard to get a moment to mourn the life and pieces that aren't getting used. I appear to really be using the mothering section. When you're a mom, you're still all the other things (wife, lover, daughter, sister, friend, reader, writer, rider). But the balance is out of whack, and everything is clinging to the sides of the ship in the storm. Some things blow across the decks occasionally.
So my boob reminds me of that. I am a great forest of overgrown trees. Nurture every section, or the whole ship goes down. So I hear you, enough already. I accept all the pieces of who I am. I'm currently loose in the family wilderness. Let me be able to nurse freely and get to all that later. The first sections I will visit upon reaching Free Time will be getting a good night's sleep, and having an intelligent conversation.
I was reading this "Eat, Pray, Love" book about finding true self and being responsible for the things and paths in your life. One of those books you want to throw through the wall and can't stop reading cause you hope it has all the answers. Once I was done with it, I was thinking (during the witch doctor section and voo doo reasons for things) that my right boob must represent all the things I've stuffed down since having kids. Things that have broken down. Things I don't get to use. You know, like bad words, relationships with other adults, going to the movies, being a lesbian. I was never full-fledged, there was no pinning ceremony or committee decision, but I teetered on the brink. So I think my boob clings barbarically to those lifestyle choices left behind. Here's a little blister to remind you of what you're not. Don't forget, chickie. There's so much more out there.
I try to nurse the boob back to health. Heh heh. Get it. There's so much more in the actual life that I'm actually having that it's hard to get a moment to mourn the life and pieces that aren't getting used. I appear to really be using the mothering section. When you're a mom, you're still all the other things (wife, lover, daughter, sister, friend, reader, writer, rider). But the balance is out of whack, and everything is clinging to the sides of the ship in the storm. Some things blow across the decks occasionally.
So my boob reminds me of that. I am a great forest of overgrown trees. Nurture every section, or the whole ship goes down. So I hear you, enough already. I accept all the pieces of who I am. I'm currently loose in the family wilderness. Let me be able to nurse freely and get to all that later. The first sections I will visit upon reaching Free Time will be getting a good night's sleep, and having an intelligent conversation.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Kind of a Public Place for a Breakdown
Driving home from the pharmacy I noticed a guy halfway into the intersection, fixing a flat tire. I had the baby in the carseat, and I was looking at this guy just sitting there in the intersection in a place no one normally sits, right there where everything usually rushes by. Kind of a public place for a breakdown, I thought.
Weird how we usually choose a quieter, more off-road place for our personal breakdowns, and how life (or cars) blow a hole right through that nice, neat theory. Sometimes a breakdown is waiting to happen, out of our control, right there, for everyone to see.
To ease the horror of that thought, the guy looked pretty relaxed in the middle of the road. I think once you get over the fear of being run down, of almost crashing, and being stared at, that you just get down on the ground and deal with the problem at hand, the flat tire. You hope someone comes along to help, and before you know it it's all over. Maybe the view from the cement, in the middle of the road, cars rushing by, your tire a shriveled mess - maybe the view isn't so bad from there. Maybe, in fact, it's more interesting than regular life.
It'd be nice to realize that that natural resistance we have to having anything go wrong is futile. I thought of that when watching a squirrel crawl off into our roses as he was breathing his last breaths in our yard the other day. (I think he was a smoker.) He was moving so slowly, it was sad, he wasn't trying to get away so badly, as much as trying to just be someplace safe. I tried to encourage him off to the side. He crawled right into the pink and white rose bush, roses in bright, vibrant bloom, rose petals on the ground around him everywhere. With no dogs trying to eat him, and his days balancing on phone wires coming to an end, I felt like saying to him, "Look up. Look up and see where you got yourself. You're surrounded by roses."
Peace in the breakdown.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Hapless Parent
I had to talk to Australia to interview for my new book. Very weird to talk to a country that's floating somewhere on the other side of the planet. I'm pretty sure the guy was faking his accent. To do the interview while hoping the baby doesn't wake up is another thing. Let's talk about Lilly. Lilly is so busy, especially getting bumps and scrapes as she figures out how to stand and sit back down again. Her favorite toy is the screen door. She loves to open and shut the door. Don't even try to take her away from it, she'll scream like she's covered in leeches. I think that she loves that there is something she can move that is huge.
She gets her head bumped so much 'cause we're always on the run, that she's started holding in her crying which scares me. It's an adult thing to do, to "suck it up," as they say, and she's only TEN MONTHS OLD. She shouldn't be sucking anything up except breastmilk. She'll bonk her head on the door frame, her face will screw up to cry, she'll choke out a few cries, and then I see her iron will kicking in. She starts to refuse to let it get her. Is this a future Olympic athelete? Running with a broken leg? A woman who will land a plane using her feet and her underwear as a parachute? Or will she grow up so repressed that she can't open a door without counting to a hundred and turning in three circles? Ahh, the crapshoot of psychosis you might be contributing to as the hapless parent. I know she will already have nightmares or be strangely comforted by the sound of a keyboard clicking, since she takes all her naps on my chest as I type around her. Comforted by a Smith-Corona. Lulled by Dell. Sleep by Microsoft.
As I type she has trashed the office by flinging around a stack of a hundred blue plastic cups. Now she's moved on to remove all the magnets off the fridge while simultaneously filling her diaper. I think it's time to refill her from the top. Lunch.
This is all after the morning I had to stay in Emma's class 'cause she was crying, so I volunteered and had the kids read books to me (Emma read EIGHT, she's up to a hundred and eight books in kindergarten!). Emma recovered, and then I checked on Nathan in the room next door, who has two big teeth with a gap in between them and all he wants to do is see his friend Daniel. They are indeed, in love. I supply the food, and all the love goes to Daniel. Ahh well. Daniel is really cute, like an elf.
This blogsite was supposed to be about Things Not Mom. But I'm too afraid to step over and blather about that untapped area of my life. I'd need a shotgun and I will only enter at night, with commando gear. Luckily I'll be asleep at that time. Someday I'll become fully human again. Until then, it's time to eat.
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