Chris and I do our best impromptu communicating through issues in the middle of the night. His insomnia will often send his mind reeling in an ever-growing spiral outward from his original prickly thought. When he can no longer pretend that he will get to sleep if he just tries a little harder to relax, he'll turn to me and say:
"Angela."
Sometimes he will shake me a little. Mostly there is just the solid sound of my name in a normal conversational tone.
"What? What is it?" I usually am jarred from a deep sleep, pulled snorting and worried into consciousness. I generally panic, fear the worst. And who doesn't, at 3:30am?
"I was just thinking..."
From here we will have deep, meaningful, if somewhat groggy conversations about everything, from trouble with friends and exes, to the meaning of pets and how we feel about each other. Recently, the conversations in the dark of night have centered around our purchasing of a house in deep southeast Portland, and how and what we will be sacrificing to make this investment. This is a real griller, because it is a big deal, this joint purchase well above the dollar/committment level of the French press we bought together. And so it is discussed.
The other day, while I was napping in the afternoon and Chris was watching cartoons, I heard the tell-tale siren call.
"Angela."
I snorked and lifted my face from the drool puddle it had been resting in.
"Wha-huh? What's wrong?"
"I was just thinking that I am glad you're alive."
These rocky starts at conversation are not always emergency grade explosives. Sometimes they are just good, warm, and fuzzy.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Our father to my sister via phone:
"It's amazing! You can get anything down here. Do you like...giraffes? Because there's this store called Pier One where you can get any damn giraffe thing you want. Yeah, they import this shit from all over the world. You can walk around in there for hours and never see the same damn thing twice. Do you like books? Cause they have this place called 'Borders Books' and I tell ya, I've never seen so many goddamn books in my life. They've got a book for everything. They have these sale books, they're only like, two dollars. Yeah, I bought some art books from that sale table and I just ripped out some pictures and hung 'em up on my walls. You put 'em in a frame and you can't even tell."
I just thought you should know how Dad is adjusting in his third year of "big city livin'."
"It's amazing! You can get anything down here. Do you like...giraffes? Because there's this store called Pier One where you can get any damn giraffe thing you want. Yeah, they import this shit from all over the world. You can walk around in there for hours and never see the same damn thing twice. Do you like books? Cause they have this place called 'Borders Books' and I tell ya, I've never seen so many goddamn books in my life. They've got a book for everything. They have these sale books, they're only like, two dollars. Yeah, I bought some art books from that sale table and I just ripped out some pictures and hung 'em up on my walls. You put 'em in a frame and you can't even tell."
I just thought you should know how Dad is adjusting in his third year of "big city livin'."
Thursday, April 14, 2005
A little thought for Chris on this morning after a night of little sleep:
"He who angers you, conquers you."
And with that, I must say(in a hypocritical manner) that waiting for our loan broker to call is a particularly exotic torture. I'm trying hard to chill and just let the water roll downhill, but like an idiot, here I am struggling against the current, attempting to climb the Mount Everest of Patience while wearing only a tablecloth knotted under my chin.
!
"He who angers you, conquers you."
And with that, I must say(in a hypocritical manner) that waiting for our loan broker to call is a particularly exotic torture. I'm trying hard to chill and just let the water roll downhill, but like an idiot, here I am struggling against the current, attempting to climb the Mount Everest of Patience while wearing only a tablecloth knotted under my chin.
!
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Argh!
Financing for the house is becoming painful to wait for! I'm not flipping out though. Okay, I'm flipping out. I can hardly type. Oh, the waiting!
I have virtually no patience for this as I need to use it on ridiculous conversations such as this:
"Hi, I'm 369."
"Pardon?"
"Oh! I mean, computer 369. I have some prints to pick up."
"Oh, certainly, it will be just a moment."
(Patron wiggles and mini-paces back and forth in front of my desk. Giggles like a little girl, although he is about 250 pounds and looks something like Barry White.)
"It will probably be a few minutes as it appears that you have a number of pages."
"Oh that's okay. I'm just addicted to flesh, you know, there's just something about it. I don't know what it is."
I smile and nod, as if I know what the hell in the hootenany he's talking about. And although I try hard not to notice what patrons are printing, it's impossible to not see the all caps http://BIGGEST_BLACK_DICK_IN_THE_WORLD_!" come up on the printer release screen. This among other, more imaginative titles.
He continues to jiggle and twitch, and I pretend to straighten the returned reference books.
"I've just got to look, you know?"
"Sure, uh huh."
I love the library.
Financing for the house is becoming painful to wait for! I'm not flipping out though. Okay, I'm flipping out. I can hardly type. Oh, the waiting!
I have virtually no patience for this as I need to use it on ridiculous conversations such as this:
"Hi, I'm 369."
"Pardon?"
"Oh! I mean, computer 369. I have some prints to pick up."
"Oh, certainly, it will be just a moment."
(Patron wiggles and mini-paces back and forth in front of my desk. Giggles like a little girl, although he is about 250 pounds and looks something like Barry White.)
"It will probably be a few minutes as it appears that you have a number of pages."
"Oh that's okay. I'm just addicted to flesh, you know, there's just something about it. I don't know what it is."
I smile and nod, as if I know what the hell in the hootenany he's talking about. And although I try hard not to notice what patrons are printing, it's impossible to not see the all caps http://BIGGEST_BLACK_DICK_IN_THE_WORLD_!" come up on the printer release screen. This among other, more imaginative titles.
He continues to jiggle and twitch, and I pretend to straighten the returned reference books.
"I've just got to look, you know?"
"Sure, uh huh."
I love the library.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Things from this week:
-Little Portly the cat ripped a one inch hole in my sister's left ear with her claws as she was climbing on her shoulders and batting at her pony tail.
-House buying anxiety roller coaster as we go through the motions; race to put in the offer before anyone else, hold our breath while the seller's flaky agent takes her time to present said offer, freak out about the acceptance, worry about the inspection, which goes off with only minor repairs needed (no dead bodies in the crawlspace like we imagined), and finally, in the home stretch, we get to play the exciting game "Will Our Loan Fall Through (At the Last Minute, Baby)".
-Having spent every last cent we have, and a few extra, actually, Chris purchases his first crappy 99 cent beer and toasts the upcoming financial drought upon our house.
-My allergies take a turn for the better, until I acknowledge that fact out loud to a friend, and then they come back in one big happy fiesta group: itchy eyes, chronic fatigue, death rattle cough(!), sinus pressure, and mucus, oh the mucus!
-A guy flips out at the pharmacy counter where I am patiently waiting to get my steroid inhaler, flabbergasting the attendant and making everybody stop, yet no one does anything. Basically, all I caught of the interaction was the flipper yelling at the flippee: "Just give me the goddamn bag! It's like you don't trust me!"
-Our realtor confides that she could never be on "Fear Factor."
-Library patrons continue to print out an enormous amount of color pornography!
-Little Portly the cat ripped a one inch hole in my sister's left ear with her claws as she was climbing on her shoulders and batting at her pony tail.
-House buying anxiety roller coaster as we go through the motions; race to put in the offer before anyone else, hold our breath while the seller's flaky agent takes her time to present said offer, freak out about the acceptance, worry about the inspection, which goes off with only minor repairs needed (no dead bodies in the crawlspace like we imagined), and finally, in the home stretch, we get to play the exciting game "Will Our Loan Fall Through (At the Last Minute, Baby)".
-Having spent every last cent we have, and a few extra, actually, Chris purchases his first crappy 99 cent beer and toasts the upcoming financial drought upon our house.
-My allergies take a turn for the better, until I acknowledge that fact out loud to a friend, and then they come back in one big happy fiesta group: itchy eyes, chronic fatigue, death rattle cough(!), sinus pressure, and mucus, oh the mucus!
-A guy flips out at the pharmacy counter where I am patiently waiting to get my steroid inhaler, flabbergasting the attendant and making everybody stop, yet no one does anything. Basically, all I caught of the interaction was the flipper yelling at the flippee: "Just give me the goddamn bag! It's like you don't trust me!"
-Our realtor confides that she could never be on "Fear Factor."
-Library patrons continue to print out an enormous amount of color pornography!
OCD Central:
Every night I put my lunch out on the table in the same arrangement: banana curved outward to the right, orange and apple nestled next to it, tea bag on top of the orange, granola bar underlining everything.
Often I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, breathing hard and wide awake from a recurring nightmare in which the bathroom linen closet did not have at least four, preferably six rolls of toilet paper neatly arranged beside the carefully rolled towels.
Getting myself out of the house in the morning was a path fraught with obstacles, from getting exactly 13 plaits in my long braid to "just checking" to make sure that the lights were off in every room. I went like this: I'd turn off a light, get a few steps away, and then a scary, insistent version of my voice would pipe up, asking me if I was really sure that the light was off. How did I know? So I'd go back and run my finger over the switch, in the down position, room dark, and then leave the room again. I'd get down the hall, or maybe even make it to the kitchen, and look back, sure that I could see the light on, and have to trudge back to check again.
I'd put my wallet in my backpack, push it securely into the bottom, zip it up, and the whispering question would waft through my brain. "Hey, there Angela. Are you sure you put your wallet in your bag? Maybe you should just have a look see." I'd look, and there it was, just like I thought. I'd rezip, head out to the car, then have to just make sure one more time, foot on the bumper, keys dangling from my mouth.
In spite of all this checking and rechecking, I still managed to do the things I feared the most. I locked my keys in the car with the car running. I left my wallet on the table at the restaurant. I didn't write down to whom I lent my favorite sweater. I lost things all the time. Fate intervened to bring disaster. Our toaster oven spontaneously combusted and had to be thrown out the back door, still flaming, into the rainy parking lot. Our dog pulled my used tampons out of the garbage and spread them in an artful display all over the front lawn. And still I worried, had to have things done my way.
If my husband left any dishes from his hastily consumed breakfast, they had to be rinsed and stacked in neat piles; plates to the right, silverware to the front, glasses on the left, faucet turned slightly toward them before I could try to leave the kitchen, running my finger over the light switch as I did so.
I'd scrub the tub that I just watched my husband clean, wipe down the counter right behind him, even though he'd done an admirable job.
"I just cleaned that."
"I know, I'm just...finishing up." A cheery shrug and a helpless smile.
He'd walk in on me scrubbing the grout between the tiles in the bathroom with an old toothbrush, sweat pouring into my eyes, hair stringy across my face in the sweltering summer heat.
"I can help you with that." He'd poke his head in and dangle an open beer above a section I just finished.
"No, I'm good," I'd say, hoping like hell he'd back the fuck up before he dropped the bottle, because if that happened, we'd have problems.
"You're good alright. Good and crazy."
And in this way, without formal discussion, I nudged him out of the household chores altogether, although to his credit, he never stopped trying to help me.
I might have been a nutjob in just my personal life, but no, it had to spill over into my professional life as well. As the manager of a trendy coffee shop, I would often be unable to delegate cleaning jobs to the rest of the staff, and if it was a slow night, I could often be found on my hands and knees scrubbing the coffee stains off the floor or scraping boogers off the underside of tables. Everything had to be sparkling and put away properly before I could leave for the night. My boss loved me.
It was physically impossible for me to walk down the sidewalk without counting the number of steps to a square. If my gas tank was less than half full, it would consume my thoughts until I dropped everything and got it filled up. Drinking a martini was a complex affair; five sips, one olive, five sips, one olive. If I ran out of olives before the end of the drink, the whole night would be shot.
I took Prozac for my obsessive-compulsive behavior for almost three weeks before I woke up one day and walked to the bathroom without running my finger over the hall light switch to make sure it was off. After I put toothpaste on my toothbrush without hearing even a whisper of my internal voice's painstaking aesthetic qualifications, I caught my own eye in the mirror and smiled. Tonight, I'd let my husband wash the dishes.
Every night I put my lunch out on the table in the same arrangement: banana curved outward to the right, orange and apple nestled next to it, tea bag on top of the orange, granola bar underlining everything.
Often I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night, breathing hard and wide awake from a recurring nightmare in which the bathroom linen closet did not have at least four, preferably six rolls of toilet paper neatly arranged beside the carefully rolled towels.
Getting myself out of the house in the morning was a path fraught with obstacles, from getting exactly 13 plaits in my long braid to "just checking" to make sure that the lights were off in every room. I went like this: I'd turn off a light, get a few steps away, and then a scary, insistent version of my voice would pipe up, asking me if I was really sure that the light was off. How did I know? So I'd go back and run my finger over the switch, in the down position, room dark, and then leave the room again. I'd get down the hall, or maybe even make it to the kitchen, and look back, sure that I could see the light on, and have to trudge back to check again.
I'd put my wallet in my backpack, push it securely into the bottom, zip it up, and the whispering question would waft through my brain. "Hey, there Angela. Are you sure you put your wallet in your bag? Maybe you should just have a look see." I'd look, and there it was, just like I thought. I'd rezip, head out to the car, then have to just make sure one more time, foot on the bumper, keys dangling from my mouth.
In spite of all this checking and rechecking, I still managed to do the things I feared the most. I locked my keys in the car with the car running. I left my wallet on the table at the restaurant. I didn't write down to whom I lent my favorite sweater. I lost things all the time. Fate intervened to bring disaster. Our toaster oven spontaneously combusted and had to be thrown out the back door, still flaming, into the rainy parking lot. Our dog pulled my used tampons out of the garbage and spread them in an artful display all over the front lawn. And still I worried, had to have things done my way.
If my husband left any dishes from his hastily consumed breakfast, they had to be rinsed and stacked in neat piles; plates to the right, silverware to the front, glasses on the left, faucet turned slightly toward them before I could try to leave the kitchen, running my finger over the light switch as I did so.
I'd scrub the tub that I just watched my husband clean, wipe down the counter right behind him, even though he'd done an admirable job.
"I just cleaned that."
"I know, I'm just...finishing up." A cheery shrug and a helpless smile.
He'd walk in on me scrubbing the grout between the tiles in the bathroom with an old toothbrush, sweat pouring into my eyes, hair stringy across my face in the sweltering summer heat.
"I can help you with that." He'd poke his head in and dangle an open beer above a section I just finished.
"No, I'm good," I'd say, hoping like hell he'd back the fuck up before he dropped the bottle, because if that happened, we'd have problems.
"You're good alright. Good and crazy."
And in this way, without formal discussion, I nudged him out of the household chores altogether, although to his credit, he never stopped trying to help me.
I might have been a nutjob in just my personal life, but no, it had to spill over into my professional life as well. As the manager of a trendy coffee shop, I would often be unable to delegate cleaning jobs to the rest of the staff, and if it was a slow night, I could often be found on my hands and knees scrubbing the coffee stains off the floor or scraping boogers off the underside of tables. Everything had to be sparkling and put away properly before I could leave for the night. My boss loved me.
It was physically impossible for me to walk down the sidewalk without counting the number of steps to a square. If my gas tank was less than half full, it would consume my thoughts until I dropped everything and got it filled up. Drinking a martini was a complex affair; five sips, one olive, five sips, one olive. If I ran out of olives before the end of the drink, the whole night would be shot.
I took Prozac for my obsessive-compulsive behavior for almost three weeks before I woke up one day and walked to the bathroom without running my finger over the hall light switch to make sure it was off. After I put toothpaste on my toothbrush without hearing even a whisper of my internal voice's painstaking aesthetic qualifications, I caught my own eye in the mirror and smiled. Tonight, I'd let my husband wash the dishes.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Chris spoke first:
"I just had to get out of that Bermuda Triangle of idiocy."
The single mom with two toddlers told everyone in our train car the story of her unfair life. Her children fussed and force-cried for the first half of the night. By the time she had them both properly spanked and sniffling, "Get away from me, you're a bad mommy!" the overweight gentleman across the aisle was able to fall asleep and promptly start snoring like a javelina. After a few hours of negotiating a limited version of rest, one of the kids woke up after snoring guy emitted a particularly loud snorkeling sound. She whined a mysterious phrase over and over, "I want my bat seat," or an equivalent. Her exasperated mother matched her volume in explaining(everytime the little girl finished her sentence) that she couldn't give her the "bat seat" because she had lost it and that she was "going to be" responsible for waking up "everybody on the damn train" and did she really want to be that rude?
What kind of adult tries to reason with a four-year-old in the manipulative way usually reserved for adult-on-adult guilt trips? I mean, it is not going to work to tell a toddler that other people are going to hate her if she doesn't stop making noise, or that she will not receive any of the Easter presents promised to her if she doesn't stop poking her sister.
After the "bat seat" fire had been tamped down to a few stray whimpers, snoring guy fell right off the end of the sleeping pier and started in with his bubbly-sounding snorts. I ground my teeth together and fought, I am not kidding, to keep control of my left leg, which wanted to shoot out and kick the guy in the lumbar region.
Chris got up and stormed to the observation car with his Game Boy, where, presumably, it was quiet.
I stayed clenched in my little ball of fury until I realized that, zoo noises or not, I wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon.
I wrapped my scarf around my face and spread out over both seats.
I love the train.
Further into the night during a snoring volume spike, I went to the bathroom and walked in on an older lady in a state of undress. Wearing only a deep purple bra and some sort of control-top garment, she didn't even notice that I had flung open the door and went on digging around in her suitcase.
Even later, Chris came back to our seats and tried to snuggle up to me, but every position on the seat's incline meant one of us got smooshed and some limb went numb.
Just before sunrise, he crawled under our seats and stretched out on the floor.
"Is that good down there?" I swung my face over the edge of the foot rest and eyeballed him. My scarf was twisted around my head like a lepers bandages.
"It's luxurious!" He pulled his hat over his face and went to sleep.
Soon after, as the sunlight burst into the car like the Kool-Aid mascot in commercials of old, snoring guy shut down his log-sawing operation and almost immediately started making calls on his cell phone to a number of people to tell them that some airline had lost his luggage. It couldn't have been more that 6am.
Single mom woke up and started complaining to snoring man(after he was through telling his missing luggage story about five times) about how behind schedule we were(about two hours), why we didn't stop for a goddamned cigarette break, and how they were "never taking the train again in life,"(?) and how much of a refund they were going to demand. This was punctuated by proclamations of how poorly they slept, how unfair and unacceptable it was that they were going to be late meeting her new boyfriend, and returns to her previous story about why she left the father of her two children.
Even with my scarf pulled over my face, the light got through, the conversation permeated.
"My kids hate the train. I couldn't fly out of Portland on Thursday or we would have done that. My boyfriend insisted that I come home for Easter or we wouldn't be here. On the way up to Portland, the bathroom broke in our train car and we were running two hours behind then too! I have to go live with my parents because I'm having a house built. My husband and I got so stressed about how long it was taking that I left him around last Halloween." She was up and pacing, talking snoring guy's ear off. Then she called her boyfriend and her grandmother and told them the whole story we had just heard.
Oh: by now it was 6:30am.
I started to think about how the only reason I was having a bad time was because of her and her mucus-y offspring. The screaming, the spanking, the loud complaining. Oh my god!
Chris called in the delay to his parents, who were awaiting our arrival in San Francisco. I went to brush my teeth. We gathered our things and sneaked away to the lounge car, noting, on our passage through five other passenger cars, how serene they were. People were still slumbering all around us. My head throbbed.
Chris bought some horrible coffee that only resembled it's label in that it was hot and in a styrofoam cup.
We talked about the Bermuda Triangle of Idiocy in our car.
I replayed the punishment scene from the night before: the older child of single mom wouldn't stop forcing herself to bawl. Huge hitching sobs came from this fairy-sized being. At this point I still had patience. Snoring guy offered to be "surrogate daddy" for a while. Whatever that meant. She told him(and the rest of us) her woes. He told her(and the rest of us) that his own fiance was pregnant, and that he wasn't sure if she really wanted to be with him.
Oh, the drama!
The kid was wailing through all of this. Eventually, I figured, she'd wear herself out. They always do. But her mom cracked first. Warnings were issued and ignored. Tiny four-year-old punches were thrown.
"Alright that's it!" and mom got up and stuffed her two-year old under her arm like a sack of flour, dragged her other screaming child by the wrist down to the lower level, where for a moment we heard nothing.
"Somebody's in big trouble." Chris whispered.
"No kidding."
Then, a solid-sounding WHACK! followed by a thin, reedy wailing as the whackee reacted in exactly the way that got her in trouble in the first place.
"I hate you, Mommy!" she caterwauled and tore back up the stairs, dove past us to hide under her seat.
Late breaking news flash:
People around us confirm we will be even longer delayed due to a medical emergency that is happening in the full view of the observation car. I thought we had been sitting here for a while. Some lady(we hoped it was Single Mom) had an anxiety attack about how late we were and opened one of the exit doors and tried to get off the moving train. An ambulance has been deployed, and a fire engine; train employees are all over the place. Evidently, she wants Amtrak to rent her a car so she can get to where she is going on time. This is not going to happen. They are sedating her and driving her away in the ambulance, which is good, because if she got back on this train, an angry mob would surely kill her.
Some little kids down the car from us are playing "No means yes and yes means no."
Chris seems to feel vindicated having predicted that Single Mom's head would explode at some point during the trip, and if the medical emergency lady is one and the same, he would be right.
Things I have seen from the train:
-a sign on a shed door reading: "Keep locked or stay the fuck out"
-a crusty, hardened glove
-a stallion taking a pee (his stream was as thick as a towing chain!)
-a really really bad wig
-hundreds of abandoned appliances
-frat boys
-ditches of sludge
-Chris asleep on the floor under my seat
Things I have heard today on the train:
-shrill screaming
-more shrill screaming
-a child singing a song phonetically resembling "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but sounding more like "Twittle Twittle Butter Bar."
-repeated threats of spanking
-I say again: shrill screaming of a pitch and sustainability only utterable by a human under 3 years old. Jesus, but that girl puts her lungs into it. And with a Nuk in there, too!
"I just had to get out of that Bermuda Triangle of idiocy."
The single mom with two toddlers told everyone in our train car the story of her unfair life. Her children fussed and force-cried for the first half of the night. By the time she had them both properly spanked and sniffling, "Get away from me, you're a bad mommy!" the overweight gentleman across the aisle was able to fall asleep and promptly start snoring like a javelina. After a few hours of negotiating a limited version of rest, one of the kids woke up after snoring guy emitted a particularly loud snorkeling sound. She whined a mysterious phrase over and over, "I want my bat seat," or an equivalent. Her exasperated mother matched her volume in explaining(everytime the little girl finished her sentence) that she couldn't give her the "bat seat" because she had lost it and that she was "going to be" responsible for waking up "everybody on the damn train" and did she really want to be that rude?
What kind of adult tries to reason with a four-year-old in the manipulative way usually reserved for adult-on-adult guilt trips? I mean, it is not going to work to tell a toddler that other people are going to hate her if she doesn't stop making noise, or that she will not receive any of the Easter presents promised to her if she doesn't stop poking her sister.
After the "bat seat" fire had been tamped down to a few stray whimpers, snoring guy fell right off the end of the sleeping pier and started in with his bubbly-sounding snorts. I ground my teeth together and fought, I am not kidding, to keep control of my left leg, which wanted to shoot out and kick the guy in the lumbar region.
Chris got up and stormed to the observation car with his Game Boy, where, presumably, it was quiet.
I stayed clenched in my little ball of fury until I realized that, zoo noises or not, I wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon.
I wrapped my scarf around my face and spread out over both seats.
I love the train.
Further into the night during a snoring volume spike, I went to the bathroom and walked in on an older lady in a state of undress. Wearing only a deep purple bra and some sort of control-top garment, she didn't even notice that I had flung open the door and went on digging around in her suitcase.
Even later, Chris came back to our seats and tried to snuggle up to me, but every position on the seat's incline meant one of us got smooshed and some limb went numb.
Just before sunrise, he crawled under our seats and stretched out on the floor.
"Is that good down there?" I swung my face over the edge of the foot rest and eyeballed him. My scarf was twisted around my head like a lepers bandages.
"It's luxurious!" He pulled his hat over his face and went to sleep.
Soon after, as the sunlight burst into the car like the Kool-Aid mascot in commercials of old, snoring guy shut down his log-sawing operation and almost immediately started making calls on his cell phone to a number of people to tell them that some airline had lost his luggage. It couldn't have been more that 6am.
Single mom woke up and started complaining to snoring man(after he was through telling his missing luggage story about five times) about how behind schedule we were(about two hours), why we didn't stop for a goddamned cigarette break, and how they were "never taking the train again in life,"(?) and how much of a refund they were going to demand. This was punctuated by proclamations of how poorly they slept, how unfair and unacceptable it was that they were going to be late meeting her new boyfriend, and returns to her previous story about why she left the father of her two children.
Even with my scarf pulled over my face, the light got through, the conversation permeated.
"My kids hate the train. I couldn't fly out of Portland on Thursday or we would have done that. My boyfriend insisted that I come home for Easter or we wouldn't be here. On the way up to Portland, the bathroom broke in our train car and we were running two hours behind then too! I have to go live with my parents because I'm having a house built. My husband and I got so stressed about how long it was taking that I left him around last Halloween." She was up and pacing, talking snoring guy's ear off. Then she called her boyfriend and her grandmother and told them the whole story we had just heard.
Oh: by now it was 6:30am.
I started to think about how the only reason I was having a bad time was because of her and her mucus-y offspring. The screaming, the spanking, the loud complaining. Oh my god!
Chris called in the delay to his parents, who were awaiting our arrival in San Francisco. I went to brush my teeth. We gathered our things and sneaked away to the lounge car, noting, on our passage through five other passenger cars, how serene they were. People were still slumbering all around us. My head throbbed.
Chris bought some horrible coffee that only resembled it's label in that it was hot and in a styrofoam cup.
We talked about the Bermuda Triangle of Idiocy in our car.
I replayed the punishment scene from the night before: the older child of single mom wouldn't stop forcing herself to bawl. Huge hitching sobs came from this fairy-sized being. At this point I still had patience. Snoring guy offered to be "surrogate daddy" for a while. Whatever that meant. She told him(and the rest of us) her woes. He told her(and the rest of us) that his own fiance was pregnant, and that he wasn't sure if she really wanted to be with him.
Oh, the drama!
The kid was wailing through all of this. Eventually, I figured, she'd wear herself out. They always do. But her mom cracked first. Warnings were issued and ignored. Tiny four-year-old punches were thrown.
"Alright that's it!" and mom got up and stuffed her two-year old under her arm like a sack of flour, dragged her other screaming child by the wrist down to the lower level, where for a moment we heard nothing.
"Somebody's in big trouble." Chris whispered.
"No kidding."
Then, a solid-sounding WHACK! followed by a thin, reedy wailing as the whackee reacted in exactly the way that got her in trouble in the first place.
"I hate you, Mommy!" she caterwauled and tore back up the stairs, dove past us to hide under her seat.
Late breaking news flash:
People around us confirm we will be even longer delayed due to a medical emergency that is happening in the full view of the observation car. I thought we had been sitting here for a while. Some lady(we hoped it was Single Mom) had an anxiety attack about how late we were and opened one of the exit doors and tried to get off the moving train. An ambulance has been deployed, and a fire engine; train employees are all over the place. Evidently, she wants Amtrak to rent her a car so she can get to where she is going on time. This is not going to happen. They are sedating her and driving her away in the ambulance, which is good, because if she got back on this train, an angry mob would surely kill her.
Some little kids down the car from us are playing "No means yes and yes means no."
Chris seems to feel vindicated having predicted that Single Mom's head would explode at some point during the trip, and if the medical emergency lady is one and the same, he would be right.
Things I have seen from the train:
-a sign on a shed door reading: "Keep locked or stay the fuck out"
-a crusty, hardened glove
-a stallion taking a pee (his stream was as thick as a towing chain!)
-a really really bad wig
-hundreds of abandoned appliances
-frat boys
-ditches of sludge
-Chris asleep on the floor under my seat
Things I have heard today on the train:
-shrill screaming
-more shrill screaming
-a child singing a song phonetically resembling "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" but sounding more like "Twittle Twittle Butter Bar."
-repeated threats of spanking
-I say again: shrill screaming of a pitch and sustainability only utterable by a human under 3 years old. Jesus, but that girl puts her lungs into it. And with a Nuk in there, too!
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Taking a stand:
I take stands all over the place. What is it with me? I mean, there isn't just one incident that bubbles to the surface of my memory when I think that phrase. In my life, I pretty much get what I think that I want. This is totally different than getting what I actually want.
When I was in college, I wanted the dishes to be washed every night and the kitchen put away. Nothing strewn about, underwear wise, in the bathroom or hallway. No wet towels balled up on the bathroom floor. My lunch for the next day uneaten. My CDs all in their appropriate cases. I let my live-in boyfriend know as much, and soon after, he moved out. I got my way, but not what I wanted.
I wanted to leave my floundering marriage, which, to be fair, wasn't pleasing my husband either. But by instigating that change, I lost my house and my dog, my own private studio, my garden, and an easy life subsidized by marrying into wealth. I got the station wagon and an apartment besieged by roaches. And oh! The paperwork! Holy crap, if people knew how much paperwork there was involved in divorce, maybe they'd give couples therapy a last ditch effort. Plus, there's nothing like sitting across the table at the courthouse from someone whom you've told you don't want to be married to anymore, that your life together cannot go on, and having them stare you down over your strategically placed cup of Starbucks coffee. Be careful what you wish for; blah, blah, blah.
Of course, I also got Chris out of the deal, who is silly and wonderful and who baby talks to the cat just like I do, so it's not bad. But when you're in the shit it all seems that way.
I haven't ever been able to take a stand with my mother. Doesn't everybody feel that way about one of their parents? I was wondering aloud the other day about a time in the future when I would be able to take grown-up vacations that don't involve using up all my vacation time going to see my family. My sister's boyfriend said, "As soon as you tell your mom that you aren't going to come and visit her this summer, but are going somewhere for yourself instead." This horrified me, as if he had advised me to hit her on the head and roll her car into the nearest body of water. But he's right. It's time for me to start loosening her arthritic yet tight little grip on all of my time off.
I take stands all over the place. What is it with me? I mean, there isn't just one incident that bubbles to the surface of my memory when I think that phrase. In my life, I pretty much get what I think that I want. This is totally different than getting what I actually want.
When I was in college, I wanted the dishes to be washed every night and the kitchen put away. Nothing strewn about, underwear wise, in the bathroom or hallway. No wet towels balled up on the bathroom floor. My lunch for the next day uneaten. My CDs all in their appropriate cases. I let my live-in boyfriend know as much, and soon after, he moved out. I got my way, but not what I wanted.
I wanted to leave my floundering marriage, which, to be fair, wasn't pleasing my husband either. But by instigating that change, I lost my house and my dog, my own private studio, my garden, and an easy life subsidized by marrying into wealth. I got the station wagon and an apartment besieged by roaches. And oh! The paperwork! Holy crap, if people knew how much paperwork there was involved in divorce, maybe they'd give couples therapy a last ditch effort. Plus, there's nothing like sitting across the table at the courthouse from someone whom you've told you don't want to be married to anymore, that your life together cannot go on, and having them stare you down over your strategically placed cup of Starbucks coffee. Be careful what you wish for; blah, blah, blah.
Of course, I also got Chris out of the deal, who is silly and wonderful and who baby talks to the cat just like I do, so it's not bad. But when you're in the shit it all seems that way.
I haven't ever been able to take a stand with my mother. Doesn't everybody feel that way about one of their parents? I was wondering aloud the other day about a time in the future when I would be able to take grown-up vacations that don't involve using up all my vacation time going to see my family. My sister's boyfriend said, "As soon as you tell your mom that you aren't going to come and visit her this summer, but are going somewhere for yourself instead." This horrified me, as if he had advised me to hit her on the head and roll her car into the nearest body of water. But he's right. It's time for me to start loosening her arthritic yet tight little grip on all of my time off.
Monday, March 21, 2005
I board the bus with Eddy and Chris. I sit at the far end of the section of three seats by the back door. Eddy sits next to me. Chris wanders into the bowels, swallowed by a section of street punks with ripped jeans and bad-itudes.
There is a guy on the other side of Eddy, pasty, dredlocked, who taps me on the shoulder as I press my fists into my chronically itchy eyes. I look up and behind Eddy.
"What's your name?" he asks.
"What?"
"What's your name?"
I panic and blurt out the real thing: "Angela."
"Oh... I'm going to write a poem about you."
"Okay," I say, because, what else can you say?
"That's why I needed to know your name," and with that, hey guy gets up and bolts out the back door.
Eddy appraises me and says, " I was wondering why he gave me the evil eye when I sat down next to you."
There is a guy on the other side of Eddy, pasty, dredlocked, who taps me on the shoulder as I press my fists into my chronically itchy eyes. I look up and behind Eddy.
"What's your name?" he asks.
"What?"
"What's your name?"
I panic and blurt out the real thing: "Angela."
"Oh... I'm going to write a poem about you."
"Okay," I say, because, what else can you say?
"That's why I needed to know your name," and with that, hey guy gets up and bolts out the back door.
Eddy appraises me and says, " I was wondering why he gave me the evil eye when I sat down next to you."
Fantastic!
Monday, March 14, 2005
My corduroy pants are never so loud as they are at work.
I walk around in the closed stacks and a zipping sound whispers from between my legs. My thighs don't ordinarily rub together, I am generally thought of as 'just a little bit of a thing,' but wearing corduroy, everyone can know the joys of thigh friction.
I think about how wearing corduroy would translate into the food service industry, where 'Waiter's Ass' runs rampant for both sexes, and how everyone I've ever known waiting tables, including me, carries either talcum powder or a tube of cortisone in their bags. Don't leave home without it! (FYI- this is when you are cruising around at high speed in a hot, often moist environment, and your butt cheeks rub together in the most unpleasant way. Eventually, after hours of this, a red, raw rash will crop up and cause the worst kind of pain and itch you would wish on your most foul enemy.) I think that polyester is the best fabric for that job, based on my personal experience, because it stretches when you do and if you spill some hollandaise on yourself, you can just wipe it off. So no cords while waiting tables.
I also think about this obnoxious fat kid in sixth grade named Brooks. He was loud. He farted and then shook with laughter, every time. He was a friend to no one. He made fun of everyone for any reason. I can't think of a single person who even pretended to like him.
But he did wear these blue cords, and he was big enough so that his thighs scraped together audibly when he walked. There were rumors flying around that he had run to catch the bus and his pants went up in flames because of the furious rubbing of fabric between his legs. I wanted to believe this was true so much that eventually, I did. Brooks was fond of calling me names. "Chicken Wing, Chicken Little, Turkey Neck." Anything that called to mind a small, scrawny, helpless animal. I loathed him.
Even though the fabric of those cords gave in to the tremendous pressure and blew out two bagel sized holes that could be seen if you bent over and looked just under his butt cheeks, he still wore them. I don't know why.
Sometimes, I wonder what those pants of his smelled like.
I walk around in the closed stacks and a zipping sound whispers from between my legs. My thighs don't ordinarily rub together, I am generally thought of as 'just a little bit of a thing,' but wearing corduroy, everyone can know the joys of thigh friction.
I think about how wearing corduroy would translate into the food service industry, where 'Waiter's Ass' runs rampant for both sexes, and how everyone I've ever known waiting tables, including me, carries either talcum powder or a tube of cortisone in their bags. Don't leave home without it! (FYI- this is when you are cruising around at high speed in a hot, often moist environment, and your butt cheeks rub together in the most unpleasant way. Eventually, after hours of this, a red, raw rash will crop up and cause the worst kind of pain and itch you would wish on your most foul enemy.) I think that polyester is the best fabric for that job, based on my personal experience, because it stretches when you do and if you spill some hollandaise on yourself, you can just wipe it off. So no cords while waiting tables.
I also think about this obnoxious fat kid in sixth grade named Brooks. He was loud. He farted and then shook with laughter, every time. He was a friend to no one. He made fun of everyone for any reason. I can't think of a single person who even pretended to like him.
But he did wear these blue cords, and he was big enough so that his thighs scraped together audibly when he walked. There were rumors flying around that he had run to catch the bus and his pants went up in flames because of the furious rubbing of fabric between his legs. I wanted to believe this was true so much that eventually, I did. Brooks was fond of calling me names. "Chicken Wing, Chicken Little, Turkey Neck." Anything that called to mind a small, scrawny, helpless animal. I loathed him.
Even though the fabric of those cords gave in to the tremendous pressure and blew out two bagel sized holes that could be seen if you bent over and looked just under his butt cheeks, he still wore them. I don't know why.
Sometimes, I wonder what those pants of his smelled like.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Opening my eyes this morning was like peeling gauze off of still-damp red crackle paint. For the first time in years, I looked stoned. I closed them immediately and pressed my fingers deep in the sockets, feeling the relief that only pressure can bring to itchy pain. I rolled my eyes experimentally, feeling my scarred marbles move in painful synchronicity.
I thought: "It would be cool to have a wall-eye that I could control. I would freak people out with it all day."
I released my face and looked at the puffy blue-black that surrounded my crackle-glazed stare. Whoa! I looked like hell. Welcome to hay fever country.
Last night Chris and I made a compress soaked in lavender and I sprawled on the bed, pajamas with the baby chickens on them swaddled around me, washcloth tamped into my eyeholes, listening to an episode of Monk.
It felt good, the compress. As long as it was on my face. The relief ended as soon as I removed it and was hit full force by whatever was in the air; Little Portly's fur and dander, dust, mold, pollen, what-have-you. I am starting to hate air. Every time I breathe or otherwise encounter the stuff, it gives me trouble.
I thought: "It would be cool to have a wall-eye that I could control. I would freak people out with it all day."
I released my face and looked at the puffy blue-black that surrounded my crackle-glazed stare. Whoa! I looked like hell. Welcome to hay fever country.
Last night Chris and I made a compress soaked in lavender and I sprawled on the bed, pajamas with the baby chickens on them swaddled around me, washcloth tamped into my eyeholes, listening to an episode of Monk.
It felt good, the compress. As long as it was on my face. The relief ended as soon as I removed it and was hit full force by whatever was in the air; Little Portly's fur and dander, dust, mold, pollen, what-have-you. I am starting to hate air. Every time I breathe or otherwise encounter the stuff, it gives me trouble.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Okay:
A week of steroids for my most recent asthma attack has taught me that in order to feel better, I have to sacrifice my generally well-adjusted attitude for one of a strung-out junkie. I am hot, way irritable, full of noxious-smelling farts, and have a ramped up appetite that allows me to eat almost a whole large pizza by myself and then get upset and territorial if there isn't enough left over for a snack later(like, maybe 6 or 8 pieces). My face and chest have broken out in tiny little whiteheads that would be cute if they were made out of glitter, but they're not.
I am wide awake, all the time, with energy that, if only it could be constructive, would be nice. Instead of repainting the bathroom or editing my novel, I am forced to go to late movies, hijacking my friends to watch Keneau Reeves say my name over and over in between his visits to hell. I am so exhausted with coughing, trying to get on top of the cough, that I pine for a sunny nap in the afternoon, kitty asleep and purring on my legs, but instead I get me, eyes wide and throbbing to the jack-rabbit pounding of my heart, launching the cat off of me when she starts to knead her tiny claws into my thigh.
And yet my head is congested, my cough persists. The thought of having to stand next to a smoker, even outside, where the wind could rip the smoke away from my lack-luster lungs, is enough to make me want to grab the next gutter punk who asks me for a cigarette by the tattered lapels and scream obscenities into his face: "Is THIS what you want? To struggle to take in air and spend your nights wondering if you'll be able to make it to the hospital in time before you starve your brain of too much oxygen?"
How did I ever think to put a cigarette to my mouth?
Also, I have to inform the people I work with about the drugs I take, what to watch for if I go down, what to tell the attending medics.
And why, oh why does my Urgent Care physician always have to be so cute? Meeting me while I look, sound, and smell like hell? Why does he have to put his cold stethoscope on my bare back and frown, saying, "Well, yes, actually, that DOES sound pretty bad in there? Are you a smoker?" I roll my eyes and say "Christ, no."
He looks like he still may not believe me. Is it the purple hair, the heavy metal style dragon tattooed on my back?
And my pharmaceutical sentence is only lightweight. I am only on these corticosteroids for a week. I wouldn't take them for longer. You can puff up like a blowfish if you let them linger in your system, bowing to the almost fanatical need to eat constantly, always feeling faint from hunger, yet never really 'hungry.'
I hate this breathing thing, it's getting me down.
Sorry about all the sniffling, guys, I'm not actually on coke, it just sounds that way.
A week of steroids for my most recent asthma attack has taught me that in order to feel better, I have to sacrifice my generally well-adjusted attitude for one of a strung-out junkie. I am hot, way irritable, full of noxious-smelling farts, and have a ramped up appetite that allows me to eat almost a whole large pizza by myself and then get upset and territorial if there isn't enough left over for a snack later(like, maybe 6 or 8 pieces). My face and chest have broken out in tiny little whiteheads that would be cute if they were made out of glitter, but they're not.
I am wide awake, all the time, with energy that, if only it could be constructive, would be nice. Instead of repainting the bathroom or editing my novel, I am forced to go to late movies, hijacking my friends to watch Keneau Reeves say my name over and over in between his visits to hell. I am so exhausted with coughing, trying to get on top of the cough, that I pine for a sunny nap in the afternoon, kitty asleep and purring on my legs, but instead I get me, eyes wide and throbbing to the jack-rabbit pounding of my heart, launching the cat off of me when she starts to knead her tiny claws into my thigh.
And yet my head is congested, my cough persists. The thought of having to stand next to a smoker, even outside, where the wind could rip the smoke away from my lack-luster lungs, is enough to make me want to grab the next gutter punk who asks me for a cigarette by the tattered lapels and scream obscenities into his face: "Is THIS what you want? To struggle to take in air and spend your nights wondering if you'll be able to make it to the hospital in time before you starve your brain of too much oxygen?"
How did I ever think to put a cigarette to my mouth?
Also, I have to inform the people I work with about the drugs I take, what to watch for if I go down, what to tell the attending medics.
And why, oh why does my Urgent Care physician always have to be so cute? Meeting me while I look, sound, and smell like hell? Why does he have to put his cold stethoscope on my bare back and frown, saying, "Well, yes, actually, that DOES sound pretty bad in there? Are you a smoker?" I roll my eyes and say "Christ, no."
He looks like he still may not believe me. Is it the purple hair, the heavy metal style dragon tattooed on my back?
And my pharmaceutical sentence is only lightweight. I am only on these corticosteroids for a week. I wouldn't take them for longer. You can puff up like a blowfish if you let them linger in your system, bowing to the almost fanatical need to eat constantly, always feeling faint from hunger, yet never really 'hungry.'
I hate this breathing thing, it's getting me down.
Sorry about all the sniffling, guys, I'm not actually on coke, it just sounds that way.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Chris and I have been playing 'Name That Kitty' for a day now, and, while the random words that pop out of our mouths are sometimes uproariously funny(i.e.-Assmaster and Poopmachine are two that take me right back to being six), it has been slow going when it comes to the real candidates.
We thought about 'Oolong' as sort of a tribute to that guy who had a web page devoted to his rabbit, Oolong. He used to put small toys and muffins and stuff on Oolong's head and then post the pictures. Sadly, Oolong died last year. But the website's still up: http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~yuebing/ (not sure of this link but if you do a google search for "oolong rabbit pancake" you should be able to find the site. It's in Japanese only, but the pictures have English captions if you roll your mouse over them)
(Okay, I just viewed it and it's his new rabbit's page, but he still has lots of Oolong pictures up.)
Then I suggested 'Pancake,' but Chris said someone else we knew had a hamster with that name.
More bathroom humor ensued.
This morning, as the kitty was launching numerous assaults against an innocent catnip mouse, Chris blurted out, "How about 'Little Portly?!"
To which I exclaimed: "Okay!"
Little Portly is a character from "The Wind In The Willows," specifically, a little otter with a paunch who tends to wander away from home while he plays and then takes naps and wakes up lost. Ratty and Mole spend about a chapter looking for him. (Don't worry, he gets found and is delivered home to Papa Otter safe and sound.)
We just reread the book and Little Portly was, by far, the best name of a charater in the story. Maybe in any book ever.
Yay for Little Portly!
We thought about 'Oolong' as sort of a tribute to that guy who had a web page devoted to his rabbit, Oolong. He used to put small toys and muffins and stuff on Oolong's head and then post the pictures. Sadly, Oolong died last year. But the website's still up: http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~yuebing/ (not sure of this link but if you do a google search for "oolong rabbit pancake" you should be able to find the site. It's in Japanese only, but the pictures have English captions if you roll your mouse over them)
(Okay, I just viewed it and it's his new rabbit's page, but he still has lots of Oolong pictures up.)
Then I suggested 'Pancake,' but Chris said someone else we knew had a hamster with that name.
More bathroom humor ensued.
This morning, as the kitty was launching numerous assaults against an innocent catnip mouse, Chris blurted out, "How about 'Little Portly?!"
To which I exclaimed: "Okay!"
Little Portly is a character from "The Wind In The Willows," specifically, a little otter with a paunch who tends to wander away from home while he plays and then takes naps and wakes up lost. Ratty and Mole spend about a chapter looking for him. (Don't worry, he gets found and is delivered home to Papa Otter safe and sound.)
We just reread the book and Little Portly was, by far, the best name of a charater in the story. Maybe in any book ever.
Yay for Little Portly!
Thursday, February 10, 2005
So there's this cat that Chris and I might take on as a freeloader. Her name right now is "Blisters" but I find that repulsive and have countered to rename it.
"How about "Keebler?" I ask and munch on my soggy ham sandwich. "Like the Keebler Elves?"
"What's wrong with "Blisters?"
"It's gross. It makes me wonder if she's got any open, oozing sores. Or maybe a short temper."
Chris takes tiny bites of his banana, thinking, moving mechanically, like a robot. I watch his teeth come down through the meat of the fruit, watching the marks his mouth makes on it. The banana dissolves into moosh. Like a mouthful of pus, sucked out of a 'blister.' I am reinvested in the renaming. I can't call an animal something that makes me think like this, especially when I'm eating.
"Actually," I say, pulling sprouts off of my sweater, "I really like just the sound of "Eebler." It could be something that rhymes."
Chris stares at me for a second and then says, "How 'bout "Enabler?" He looks triumphant, and it's clear from the look on my face that we have a winner.
"How about "Keebler?" I ask and munch on my soggy ham sandwich. "Like the Keebler Elves?"
"What's wrong with "Blisters?"
"It's gross. It makes me wonder if she's got any open, oozing sores. Or maybe a short temper."
Chris takes tiny bites of his banana, thinking, moving mechanically, like a robot. I watch his teeth come down through the meat of the fruit, watching the marks his mouth makes on it. The banana dissolves into moosh. Like a mouthful of pus, sucked out of a 'blister.' I am reinvested in the renaming. I can't call an animal something that makes me think like this, especially when I'm eating.
"Actually," I say, pulling sprouts off of my sweater, "I really like just the sound of "Eebler." It could be something that rhymes."
Chris stares at me for a second and then says, "How 'bout "Enabler?" He looks triumphant, and it's clear from the look on my face that we have a winner.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Whose Pants?
Chris recently discovered that if he washes and dries a pair of his pants that should be dry cleaned only (say, a pair of wool Banana Republic pants that he bought at a thrift store for about $3 and that I have always liked a lot, and have maybe even eyeballed with a good deal of thrift store score envy, on more than one occasion), and the pants shrink, they end up being the exact right size for me. Not that I would wish shrinking wool pants on anybody.
So now I am the proud, if a bit sheepish, owner of a pair of BR pants. They fit great!
I was worried that the butt of these pants would make my butt look more like a typical guy butt, and that is not something that I want, as lots of guys sort of have no butt at all, but more like a weird concavity that should maybe be checked out by a doctor or something. But as I asked around, everyone agreed that my butt does not automatically turn into guy butt just because I'm wearing guy pants. Thank god.
Change of subject:
Tomorrow morning BEFORE work, I've got my yoga class, and although I love it, the last one I went to we were told to use these straps to sort of rope ourselves into position. I couldn't figure it out.
I am not ashamed that it takes me a minute to remember which end of the cable goes to what part of the battery when jumping a car. I am, however, embarrassed that I couldn't figure out how to secure this belt-like thing around my back and have it not immediately unravel.
The instructor was very patient with us, but only got to help the three worst of us unravelers before we had to move on to a different pose, one that didn't involve any props. By that time, I resembled one of those tree-shaped air fresheners that you hang from your rear-view mirror. I didn't smell like one though, which was maybe too bad, because I was quite sweaty.
One last thing: I got asked out on a date by a patron wearing a train engineer's hat. I don't think he was an actual train engineer. I flashed him my divorce ring and told him I was married. He seemed to take it well.
Chris recently discovered that if he washes and dries a pair of his pants that should be dry cleaned only (say, a pair of wool Banana Republic pants that he bought at a thrift store for about $3 and that I have always liked a lot, and have maybe even eyeballed with a good deal of thrift store score envy, on more than one occasion), and the pants shrink, they end up being the exact right size for me. Not that I would wish shrinking wool pants on anybody.
So now I am the proud, if a bit sheepish, owner of a pair of BR pants. They fit great!
I was worried that the butt of these pants would make my butt look more like a typical guy butt, and that is not something that I want, as lots of guys sort of have no butt at all, but more like a weird concavity that should maybe be checked out by a doctor or something. But as I asked around, everyone agreed that my butt does not automatically turn into guy butt just because I'm wearing guy pants. Thank god.
Change of subject:
Tomorrow morning BEFORE work, I've got my yoga class, and although I love it, the last one I went to we were told to use these straps to sort of rope ourselves into position. I couldn't figure it out.
I am not ashamed that it takes me a minute to remember which end of the cable goes to what part of the battery when jumping a car. I am, however, embarrassed that I couldn't figure out how to secure this belt-like thing around my back and have it not immediately unravel.
The instructor was very patient with us, but only got to help the three worst of us unravelers before we had to move on to a different pose, one that didn't involve any props. By that time, I resembled one of those tree-shaped air fresheners that you hang from your rear-view mirror. I didn't smell like one though, which was maybe too bad, because I was quite sweaty.
One last thing: I got asked out on a date by a patron wearing a train engineer's hat. I don't think he was an actual train engineer. I flashed him my divorce ring and told him I was married. He seemed to take it well.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
It was almost like my subconscious had grabbed ahold of the virus that was going around the library and kept it in check, waiting for the right moment to begin incubation. I started feeling crappy on Wednesday night, just a slight catch in my throat, a dull ache in my limbs. By the time Chris and Eddy and I had reached the bus stop though, I could tell I was going down for real.
I was supposed to have Jury Duty the next morning, and I couldn't figure out how to call in sick for that so I go up and went to the court house, even though I could barely keep my clothes on. I was hot, my skin was doing that prickly thing that sea urchins do when anything touches them. My spines felt poked at. I was a tide pool creature at the mercy of the people with sticks, with probing fingers.
I waited in line with everyone else, thinking I'd fall over. My fever spiked and I sweated through my clothes. I could have collected the moisture in my shirt in a glass if I had tried to wring it out.
"Fever!" I croaked out when a nice young man named Brian asked me how he could help me. He may have thought I was a junkie, I guess it doesn't matter. He sent me right home, which was all I wanted, with the stipulation that I come back and try again next month.
I climbed in bed and slept for two and a half days.
That's not true; I got up early the next day to reschedule a dentist appointment for the third time. I had been hoping to feel well enough to at least take that off my calendar, but alas, my body made the choice for me: an unmoving mouth-breathing lump in bed instead of numb-faced, drooling, and receiving a lecture on why I should floss more.
Fuckity fuck.
So now both the jury duty and the fillings are back in the hopper, waiting for me to stress out about all over again.
Chris stayed in with me on Friday, even though I think I only woke up a few times to pee. He camped in the bedroom with his new $65 laptop playing video games and trying to entice me into a state of awareness with Frogger and jeopardy. Needless to say, I didn't really play with him, which made me feel bad, but not bad enough to wake up.
I was so sure that I wasn't going to get sick this year. I've been taking all those fancy inhaled steroids for my asthma management and so I figured my lungs were like iron. I was wrong, although, I have to say, that with this cold, there has been a marked lack of congestion. Hmm...
Yesterday I finally started to feel better. I know this because I started to realize how goaty the sheets were getting. I wobbled down to the washer and threw them all in. Then I did the dishes. Ah, being better= domestic chores! Heaven!
I was supposed to have Jury Duty the next morning, and I couldn't figure out how to call in sick for that so I go up and went to the court house, even though I could barely keep my clothes on. I was hot, my skin was doing that prickly thing that sea urchins do when anything touches them. My spines felt poked at. I was a tide pool creature at the mercy of the people with sticks, with probing fingers.
I waited in line with everyone else, thinking I'd fall over. My fever spiked and I sweated through my clothes. I could have collected the moisture in my shirt in a glass if I had tried to wring it out.
"Fever!" I croaked out when a nice young man named Brian asked me how he could help me. He may have thought I was a junkie, I guess it doesn't matter. He sent me right home, which was all I wanted, with the stipulation that I come back and try again next month.
I climbed in bed and slept for two and a half days.
That's not true; I got up early the next day to reschedule a dentist appointment for the third time. I had been hoping to feel well enough to at least take that off my calendar, but alas, my body made the choice for me: an unmoving mouth-breathing lump in bed instead of numb-faced, drooling, and receiving a lecture on why I should floss more.
Fuckity fuck.
So now both the jury duty and the fillings are back in the hopper, waiting for me to stress out about all over again.
Chris stayed in with me on Friday, even though I think I only woke up a few times to pee. He camped in the bedroom with his new $65 laptop playing video games and trying to entice me into a state of awareness with Frogger and jeopardy. Needless to say, I didn't really play with him, which made me feel bad, but not bad enough to wake up.
I was so sure that I wasn't going to get sick this year. I've been taking all those fancy inhaled steroids for my asthma management and so I figured my lungs were like iron. I was wrong, although, I have to say, that with this cold, there has been a marked lack of congestion. Hmm...
Yesterday I finally started to feel better. I know this because I started to realize how goaty the sheets were getting. I wobbled down to the washer and threw them all in. Then I did the dishes. Ah, being better= domestic chores! Heaven!
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
It turns out that Jason(see previous post for run down on police action at my house) actually suffered some fractures in his face the other night. There is talk of him or his family suing the Portland police over their brutality and not taking responsibility for hurting him. I understand that he asked to be taken to the hospital on the way to detox, but that he wasn't taken there until the next morning, where they discovered the fractures. He had been cleared by an EMT before he was put in the car, which makes me think that he might have done some of the damage himself.
Prevailing opinions at my house are that the police are solely responsible for his injuries, but as one of the only sober people at the scene, I have a different interpretation:
I didn't see everything go down, BUT;
Two grown men who should have known better got shitfaced.
One woman forgot to give those men a key to the place they were staying.
Chris and I didn't answer the door on the first doorbell ring and were untrusting of the strangers standing on our porch in the middle of the night.
One of the drunk men refused to comply with a police officer's requests.
The other drunk man called the officer a fascist.
The drunk man who was 'taken down' by the cop and handcuffed was put in the patrol car where he then slammed his head against the window repeatedly.
It kind of sounds like no one wants to take responsibility for their actions here.
My opinion is that we are all a little at fault. If they wouldn't have been so hammered...if Sonya would have woken up...if we would have answered the door right away and let them in...if Jason would have just done as he was asked...if he wouldn't have hit his head against the car...
I think that the police need to be liable for the mistakes that they make, but I'm not so sure that they could have done anything different. I mean, every situation they deal with is one where they have to go into it believing that the people involved might kill them or others. Shit, I'd be more likely to take extreme measures myself if that were the case...
Prevailing opinions at my house are that the police are solely responsible for his injuries, but as one of the only sober people at the scene, I have a different interpretation:
I didn't see everything go down, BUT;
Two grown men who should have known better got shitfaced.
One woman forgot to give those men a key to the place they were staying.
Chris and I didn't answer the door on the first doorbell ring and were untrusting of the strangers standing on our porch in the middle of the night.
One of the drunk men refused to comply with a police officer's requests.
The other drunk man called the officer a fascist.
The drunk man who was 'taken down' by the cop and handcuffed was put in the patrol car where he then slammed his head against the window repeatedly.
It kind of sounds like no one wants to take responsibility for their actions here.
My opinion is that we are all a little at fault. If they wouldn't have been so hammered...if Sonya would have woken up...if we would have answered the door right away and let them in...if Jason would have just done as he was asked...if he wouldn't have hit his head against the car...
I think that the police need to be liable for the mistakes that they make, but I'm not so sure that they could have done anything different. I mean, every situation they deal with is one where they have to go into it believing that the people involved might kill them or others. Shit, I'd be more likely to take extreme measures myself if that were the case...
Sunday, January 30, 2005
3:30am. The doorbell rings. I wake up, but decide to ignore it. It's probably just the same shitheads that stole my sick plant off the front porch.
It rings again. Then again. I wake Chris up, then ask him what we should do. I mean, answering the doorbell at 3:30 in the morning is never going to yield good news. He decides to answer it.
We open the front door out into the hallway we share with the girls that live upstairs. It's one of their friends, a college age boy who compulsively wears a red baseball hat. Chris walks down the hall and opens the door.
He finds out that the guy is drunk and he is staying with our upstairs neighbor and that he and his companion got locked out. We don't know if she locked them out on purpose or if it was just an accident. I am hanging back in the hallway in my pajamas, away from the strange people.
"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you at such a late hour, but I'm a friend of Sonya's and my friend and I just went to the bar down the street after Sonya passed out and she must have locked the door and we're staying with her and she won't wake up to let us in." Red Hat gushes the run-on sentences of a socially well *ahem* lubricated man, but is freakily polite about it. "Thank you so much for being so understanding, and we apologize again for waking you at this hour."
We don't know if we should let them in because there is no way of knowing if these guys even know our upstairs neighbors or if she wants them there. We need to ask Sonya what she wants us to do. Chris runs up the stairs and opens the front door to Sonya's apartment, which is unlocked. He calls her name. No answer. He ventures in as far as her closed bedroom door and calls her name again. Still no answer. He comes back down.
I have decided that my need to know exactly what is happening on my front porch overrides the fact that I am clad in flannel pajamas with baby chickens all over them. I grab my robe and jump into the fray.
The first thing I notice as I enter the hallway is the flashing disco lights of a police car in front of our house. Not a good sign.
A policeman has pulled over and handcuffed Red Hat's companion for mooning his patrol car. The kid sloppily insists he was merely trying to hail a cab. I will later wonder how he thinks he was going to flag down a taxi on a street with no traffic in a town with no cabs. But that is later. This is now:
Red Hat is upset that the policeman tackled his friend to the ground, bruising his face and making him bleed on our front steps. The cop is defending himself by explaining that since he wouldn't take his hands out of his pockets and he was "dancing drunkenly in the middle of the road" and "wouldn't comply with my orders" that he had to assume he was carrying a weapon of some kind. Red Hat is trying to calm down the mooner, whose name I find out is actually Jason, by holding him down on the front steps, blood dripping onto the sidewalk.
A fire truck/ambulance vehicle pulls up. A woman gets out and examines Jason. The cop is calling his sergeant for back-up. The EMT lady clears Jason of any possible concussion.
I wonder out loud to Chris if Sonya has choked on her own vomit upstairs, as Red Hat keeps telling us how much she was throwing up earlier. That plus the fact that she hasn't woken up even with all the noise makes me think she might be dead. We both return to her bedroom, where I knock on the door and call her name. She doesn't answer. It flashes through my mind that this might be a very long, gruesome night. I tiptoe over to her bed, why I'm not sure, I mean, I WANT her to wake up, right. Still, I'm in a strange person's bedroom in the middle of the night and I feel ginger about touching anything or stepping to heavily. I touch her head and she moans. She is incredibly fucked up, but still alive. I ask her if she knows her friends have been locked out. She wakes up a little and tells me to let them back in. She is distressed. I smooth down her unruly curls and tell her to just lay back down. She asks if they are okay. I hesitate and then shrug, saying "I think so."
I do not want her to wake up and "try to help." We shut her bedroom door and promise to let her friends back in her apartment. We do not mention the police, the handcuffs, or the swollen bloodied face.
We return to the front porch where Jason is repeatedly attempting to stand up and confront the cop about his handcuffs. He asks to have them removed. Or at least loosened. This request is denied and Red Hat pulls him down into a sitting position again. Jason and the cop are still discussing whether or not he deserves to be in handcuffs. Red Hat agrees with his friend that they should be removed and is growing visibly upset at his friend's appearance.
The cop refuses to discuss taking the handcuffs off and tells Jason to get used to it(paraphrasing like crazy here, as I could only hear bits and pieces, sorry).
Red Hat tears up the stairs on his way to Sonya's apartment, calling the cop a fascist on the way. I suck in air through my clenched teeth and think that this is not the way to endear yourself to a law enforcement official.
Back-up arrives. There is talk to taking Jason to detox, as he is clearly unable to handle himself, and is even possibly a danger to himself and others. The evidence they have to prove this is the fact that he tried to "hail a cab" by flashing his ass in the middle of the street in the middle of the night. Oh, and that he refused to comply with the officer's request that he remove his hands from his pockets and get down on the ground. Things aren't looking so good for Jason.
Red Hat vehemently opposes Jason's immanent departure for detox, and requests to be taken with to keep an eye on him. The sergeant laughs and says that he does NOT want to do that. Detox is not fun, and the only way he can go with is if he agrees to be locked up there as well.
I think the police are being more than generous with their plan, as they could have just saved themselves a lot of trouble and arrested both of them for being drunk and disorderly.
I mention to the policemen that Sonya has in fact given them the okay to just come back in her apartment and crash. One of them asks me if I am in fact taking responsibility for the two drunk people. I wave my arms and say no. He asks me if I am sober. This grates at me. I am standing on my porch with two strangers causing a scene in the middle of the night. I am in my pajamas, have bed head, and have clearly just been interrupted during a critical stage in my sleep cycle. I am the only one here besides the officers who is sober. But I let it go, as this is clearly an uncool situation and someone needs to take control. I say no, that I have to work in the morning and that I don't even know these people.
The officers confer and decide that Jason really needs to be taken away to sleep it off somewhere where he won't get up and wander off or freak out. They load him into the back of the patrol car. Red Hat flips out. He does not want Jason to go, and asks for the address, which is given to him with the promise that as soon as Jason has sobered up, he will be allowed to call Red Hat for a ride.
"How long are we talking about here?" Red Hat asks.
"You'll probably make it to church."
"We're not going to church, I don't believe in God-" Red Hat is getting upset at the assumption that he is a God-fearing type and the cop laughs a little and tells him that he was just trying to give him a time frame.
Jason making loud noises by himself in the patrol car like he is banging his head against the patrol car window, hard.
The policemen decide to wrap things up and leave Chris and I to reason with a drunk man, with his own brand of circular logic.
After two more whole recaps of how Red Hat thinks things went down, which makes increasingly less and less sense, Chris announces that it is late, and that we are going to bed.
Red Hat apologizes again and thanks us for being so understanding.
We lock the door and go back to bed.
Chris plays his gameboy and I lay awake, eyes on the ceiling, wondering if I'll sleep
It rings again. Then again. I wake Chris up, then ask him what we should do. I mean, answering the doorbell at 3:30 in the morning is never going to yield good news. He decides to answer it.
We open the front door out into the hallway we share with the girls that live upstairs. It's one of their friends, a college age boy who compulsively wears a red baseball hat. Chris walks down the hall and opens the door.
He finds out that the guy is drunk and he is staying with our upstairs neighbor and that he and his companion got locked out. We don't know if she locked them out on purpose or if it was just an accident. I am hanging back in the hallway in my pajamas, away from the strange people.
"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you at such a late hour, but I'm a friend of Sonya's and my friend and I just went to the bar down the street after Sonya passed out and she must have locked the door and we're staying with her and she won't wake up to let us in." Red Hat gushes the run-on sentences of a socially well *ahem* lubricated man, but is freakily polite about it. "Thank you so much for being so understanding, and we apologize again for waking you at this hour."
We don't know if we should let them in because there is no way of knowing if these guys even know our upstairs neighbors or if she wants them there. We need to ask Sonya what she wants us to do. Chris runs up the stairs and opens the front door to Sonya's apartment, which is unlocked. He calls her name. No answer. He ventures in as far as her closed bedroom door and calls her name again. Still no answer. He comes back down.
I have decided that my need to know exactly what is happening on my front porch overrides the fact that I am clad in flannel pajamas with baby chickens all over them. I grab my robe and jump into the fray.
The first thing I notice as I enter the hallway is the flashing disco lights of a police car in front of our house. Not a good sign.
A policeman has pulled over and handcuffed Red Hat's companion for mooning his patrol car. The kid sloppily insists he was merely trying to hail a cab. I will later wonder how he thinks he was going to flag down a taxi on a street with no traffic in a town with no cabs. But that is later. This is now:
Red Hat is upset that the policeman tackled his friend to the ground, bruising his face and making him bleed on our front steps. The cop is defending himself by explaining that since he wouldn't take his hands out of his pockets and he was "dancing drunkenly in the middle of the road" and "wouldn't comply with my orders" that he had to assume he was carrying a weapon of some kind. Red Hat is trying to calm down the mooner, whose name I find out is actually Jason, by holding him down on the front steps, blood dripping onto the sidewalk.
A fire truck/ambulance vehicle pulls up. A woman gets out and examines Jason. The cop is calling his sergeant for back-up. The EMT lady clears Jason of any possible concussion.
I wonder out loud to Chris if Sonya has choked on her own vomit upstairs, as Red Hat keeps telling us how much she was throwing up earlier. That plus the fact that she hasn't woken up even with all the noise makes me think she might be dead. We both return to her bedroom, where I knock on the door and call her name. She doesn't answer. It flashes through my mind that this might be a very long, gruesome night. I tiptoe over to her bed, why I'm not sure, I mean, I WANT her to wake up, right. Still, I'm in a strange person's bedroom in the middle of the night and I feel ginger about touching anything or stepping to heavily. I touch her head and she moans. She is incredibly fucked up, but still alive. I ask her if she knows her friends have been locked out. She wakes up a little and tells me to let them back in. She is distressed. I smooth down her unruly curls and tell her to just lay back down. She asks if they are okay. I hesitate and then shrug, saying "I think so."
I do not want her to wake up and "try to help." We shut her bedroom door and promise to let her friends back in her apartment. We do not mention the police, the handcuffs, or the swollen bloodied face.
We return to the front porch where Jason is repeatedly attempting to stand up and confront the cop about his handcuffs. He asks to have them removed. Or at least loosened. This request is denied and Red Hat pulls him down into a sitting position again. Jason and the cop are still discussing whether or not he deserves to be in handcuffs. Red Hat agrees with his friend that they should be removed and is growing visibly upset at his friend's appearance.
The cop refuses to discuss taking the handcuffs off and tells Jason to get used to it(paraphrasing like crazy here, as I could only hear bits and pieces, sorry).
Red Hat tears up the stairs on his way to Sonya's apartment, calling the cop a fascist on the way. I suck in air through my clenched teeth and think that this is not the way to endear yourself to a law enforcement official.
Back-up arrives. There is talk to taking Jason to detox, as he is clearly unable to handle himself, and is even possibly a danger to himself and others. The evidence they have to prove this is the fact that he tried to "hail a cab" by flashing his ass in the middle of the street in the middle of the night. Oh, and that he refused to comply with the officer's request that he remove his hands from his pockets and get down on the ground. Things aren't looking so good for Jason.
Red Hat vehemently opposes Jason's immanent departure for detox, and requests to be taken with to keep an eye on him. The sergeant laughs and says that he does NOT want to do that. Detox is not fun, and the only way he can go with is if he agrees to be locked up there as well.
I think the police are being more than generous with their plan, as they could have just saved themselves a lot of trouble and arrested both of them for being drunk and disorderly.
I mention to the policemen that Sonya has in fact given them the okay to just come back in her apartment and crash. One of them asks me if I am in fact taking responsibility for the two drunk people. I wave my arms and say no. He asks me if I am sober. This grates at me. I am standing on my porch with two strangers causing a scene in the middle of the night. I am in my pajamas, have bed head, and have clearly just been interrupted during a critical stage in my sleep cycle. I am the only one here besides the officers who is sober. But I let it go, as this is clearly an uncool situation and someone needs to take control. I say no, that I have to work in the morning and that I don't even know these people.
The officers confer and decide that Jason really needs to be taken away to sleep it off somewhere where he won't get up and wander off or freak out. They load him into the back of the patrol car. Red Hat flips out. He does not want Jason to go, and asks for the address, which is given to him with the promise that as soon as Jason has sobered up, he will be allowed to call Red Hat for a ride.
"How long are we talking about here?" Red Hat asks.
"You'll probably make it to church."
"We're not going to church, I don't believe in God-" Red Hat is getting upset at the assumption that he is a God-fearing type and the cop laughs a little and tells him that he was just trying to give him a time frame.
Jason making loud noises by himself in the patrol car like he is banging his head against the patrol car window, hard.
The policemen decide to wrap things up and leave Chris and I to reason with a drunk man, with his own brand of circular logic.
After two more whole recaps of how Red Hat thinks things went down, which makes increasingly less and less sense, Chris announces that it is late, and that we are going to bed.
Red Hat apologizes again and thanks us for being so understanding.
We lock the door and go back to bed.
Chris plays his gameboy and I lay awake, eyes on the ceiling, wondering if I'll sleep
Monday, January 24, 2005
Last weekend when Portland had that huge ice storm, Chris got a call telling him that he still had to go to work. I was worried(like a mother hen) that he would slip on the front stairs or on the way to the bus stop, so I decided to venture out on the front porch and see just what we were dealing with. I grabbed my cell phone to cancel my appointments for the day, and opened the door. Everything was covered with a solid layer of wavy ice, sort of beautiful, like a big glazed donut. (The machines that cover donuts and candy bars with the final layer of glaze/chocolate are called 'enrobers,' if I'm not mistaken, and that's so cool.)
I put my slippered hoof down on the top stair and slipped, then bounced down all eight stairs to the sidewalk. Luckily, I was able to break my fall with my cell phone, and so I only sustained enormous bruises on two major portions of my back instead of three. My arm got dinged up too, but my phone only got a small scratch.
When I tried to stand up, I realized I was soaking wet. This was because it was, you know, raining, but I was convinced that it was blood. I kicked off my slippers and used my socks as impromptu wooly cleats, dragging what I thought to be my blood-covered carcass back up the mountain.
I threw myself on the couch in the living room and tried to get my breathing under control. I called out to Chris, who had been getting ready to take a bath. I could hear the water still running and I hoped he hadn't gotten in yet. No answer. I called again, louder this time. Nothing. So I shouted. Then I screamed. That got him. He came out of the bathroom holding his towel, brow furrowed.
"Angela, what is it? What's wrong?" he came over and inspected my crumpled form.
"I fell...down the front steps. Am I covered in my own blood?" I started shaking, the kidney punches the cement had laid into me were starting to really ache.
"What? Blood? No, you're just wet. Come on, let's put you back in bed."
He helped me into the bed room and tucked me in. Kissed my forehead and said, "It's weird, because ten minutes ago, your sister called and told me to tell you to be really careful to not fall down the stairs."
"Why didn't you tell me that?"
"I figured you wouldn't fall down the stairs."
Nice.
I put my slippered hoof down on the top stair and slipped, then bounced down all eight stairs to the sidewalk. Luckily, I was able to break my fall with my cell phone, and so I only sustained enormous bruises on two major portions of my back instead of three. My arm got dinged up too, but my phone only got a small scratch.
When I tried to stand up, I realized I was soaking wet. This was because it was, you know, raining, but I was convinced that it was blood. I kicked off my slippers and used my socks as impromptu wooly cleats, dragging what I thought to be my blood-covered carcass back up the mountain.
I threw myself on the couch in the living room and tried to get my breathing under control. I called out to Chris, who had been getting ready to take a bath. I could hear the water still running and I hoped he hadn't gotten in yet. No answer. I called again, louder this time. Nothing. So I shouted. Then I screamed. That got him. He came out of the bathroom holding his towel, brow furrowed.
"Angela, what is it? What's wrong?" he came over and inspected my crumpled form.
"I fell...down the front steps. Am I covered in my own blood?" I started shaking, the kidney punches the cement had laid into me were starting to really ache.
"What? Blood? No, you're just wet. Come on, let's put you back in bed."
He helped me into the bed room and tucked me in. Kissed my forehead and said, "It's weird, because ten minutes ago, your sister called and told me to tell you to be really careful to not fall down the stairs."
"Why didn't you tell me that?"
"I figured you wouldn't fall down the stairs."
Nice.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Last night after a weird bath(long story, too personal), I heaved myself out of the barely lukewarm water and racked myself on the faucet. I don't normally sit on that end of the tub, and wasn't at all ready for the feeling of being stabbed in the small of my back by what felt like a hollow needle the size of a, well, a bathtub faucet. I checked it out in the mirror, as best I could without my glasses, and it hadn't even broken the skin, which wasn't consistent with the way it felt. After five minutes, I looked at it again, and to my horror, it had swelled up and looked like a sugar cookie had been implanted under my skin.
I went to put on my pajama pants and realized that the scrape was dead center in the physiological lane my waist bands usually drive in. (What a horrible metaphor. I have a headache and girl trouble, can you tell? Fuck.)
Chris put a bandage on it, but that lasted all of 10 minutes, as it just pulled on the fine little hairs around it.
Then I got glassy-eyed as my femininity made itself rudely known by kicking me in the groin.
I went to bed mad that uterine cramps had once again surprised me, deer in headlights style. I mean, I should know what to expect, I've been doing this menstruation thing for quite a while now, but it never fails to blow my fucking mind.
As I drifted to sleep I mentally went through my closet to figure out what clothes I could wear that would accommodate my swollen reproductive organs and the sugar cookie-esque bruise on my back. I decided that I should go pantsless. Then I fell asleep to the sound of Chris playing his Game Boy...
I went to put on my pajama pants and realized that the scrape was dead center in the physiological lane my waist bands usually drive in. (What a horrible metaphor. I have a headache and girl trouble, can you tell? Fuck.)
Chris put a bandage on it, but that lasted all of 10 minutes, as it just pulled on the fine little hairs around it.
Then I got glassy-eyed as my femininity made itself rudely known by kicking me in the groin.
I went to bed mad that uterine cramps had once again surprised me, deer in headlights style. I mean, I should know what to expect, I've been doing this menstruation thing for quite a while now, but it never fails to blow my fucking mind.
As I drifted to sleep I mentally went through my closet to figure out what clothes I could wear that would accommodate my swollen reproductive organs and the sugar cookie-esque bruise on my back. I decided that I should go pantsless. Then I fell asleep to the sound of Chris playing his Game Boy...
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
For my birthday yesterday, Chris gave me an armful of purple presents, including a stuffed unicorn. Then we went out for sushi at the place downtown with the train. I stuffed myself with multiple orders of tempura tai(a jazzed up fishstick teetering atop a nub of sticky rice smothered in hot sauce) and creamy scallops. I ordered real crab sushi too, which I normally don't do because it's so expensive. But, this is the last year of my 20's, and if I want real crab with my seaweed, I'll have real crab.
I always buy the 25 cent mints at the counter there when we leave. They're nothing special, but I like how the clear plexiglass mint cage has a pink sign taped to it that says: 25 cents! NOT Free!
I told Chris I was going to name my birthday unicorn 'Sushicorn' in honor of the delightful dinner we had. He thought that was a pretty good name for a stuffed animal.
We're having a reading on Thursday night at our house to give everyone who wrote books for National Novel Writing Month a chance to publicly showcase their efforts. We have about 5 or six people lined up to read, including ourselves. Nervous in that I'm not sure who is going to show up, and will we have enough chairs. Not nervous about reading. That last workshop I took sort of took the wind out of the fear of public speaking.
Now then, I have taken to wearing these fingerless gloves everywhere, because I'm always cold and black fingerless gloves are just rock star cool, no matter what anyone says.
I always buy the 25 cent mints at the counter there when we leave. They're nothing special, but I like how the clear plexiglass mint cage has a pink sign taped to it that says: 25 cents! NOT Free!
I told Chris I was going to name my birthday unicorn 'Sushicorn' in honor of the delightful dinner we had. He thought that was a pretty good name for a stuffed animal.
We're having a reading on Thursday night at our house to give everyone who wrote books for National Novel Writing Month a chance to publicly showcase their efforts. We have about 5 or six people lined up to read, including ourselves. Nervous in that I'm not sure who is going to show up, and will we have enough chairs. Not nervous about reading. That last workshop I took sort of took the wind out of the fear of public speaking.
Now then, I have taken to wearing these fingerless gloves everywhere, because I'm always cold and black fingerless gloves are just rock star cool, no matter what anyone says.
Monday, January 10, 2005
My mom calls those mini-bananas that are all the rage in organic grocery stores right now "banditos." I'm not sure why. She says that's just the first word that pops into her head when she sees them.
Last night I fell asleep on the couch clutching a half-eaten bag of Doritos and the remote for the DVD player. I had been watching the Simpson's third season and when I got to the end of the fourth one I just sort of slumped over and started drooling on Tube Pillow(a pillow shaped like a tube, FYI.).
I had my dog Jake on Saturday for a few hours. We played in the mud, lunged for a guy holding a cup of coffee, and got caught in the rain. We went back to my house and drank a huge bowl of water, curled up on the couch and napped like littermates, and then did some laundry.
Jake loves carrying around dirty socks and underwear in his mouth, and I figured, what the hell, they're all going in the wash anyway, so I let him carry a few pungent items to the basement. It's important to make your pets feel involved.
Last night I fell asleep on the couch clutching a half-eaten bag of Doritos and the remote for the DVD player. I had been watching the Simpson's third season and when I got to the end of the fourth one I just sort of slumped over and started drooling on Tube Pillow(a pillow shaped like a tube, FYI.).
I had my dog Jake on Saturday for a few hours. We played in the mud, lunged for a guy holding a cup of coffee, and got caught in the rain. We went back to my house and drank a huge bowl of water, curled up on the couch and napped like littermates, and then did some laundry.
Jake loves carrying around dirty socks and underwear in his mouth, and I figured, what the hell, they're all going in the wash anyway, so I let him carry a few pungent items to the basement. It's important to make your pets feel involved.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
December 28th: The Final Judgement
Didn't really get up to much. We took a scenic drive on I-84 to scope out activities for mom's summer visit. Drove up to some building on a cliff that I can't recall the name of, and it was so windy, we couldn't even get out of the car. I attempted it, but had to abort the mission as my hat flew off my head, my glasses rattled on my face, and my nostrils flapped shut like a camel.
Kristi, Jackson, mom, and I went to Green Papaya for happy hour, where the service is pretty slow, but the blond bartender is cute and you can order all the cream cheese wantons you can eat for two hours. I'm not sure if the crunchy fried wrap is a vehicle for the cream cheese or the other way around, but it really doesn't matter. We each had an order and I pigged up almost half of them. Luckily, the mom and Kristi were distracted by the steak rolls and Jackson wasn't very hungry so no one slapped my hand away or anything.
The bartender only charged us for our food for some reason, I'd like to think it's because he thought we were all cute, but it was probably just an honest mistake. So we left him a $20 tip.
It was almost 6pm, time for Chris to get off work, and the library's only two blocks from the restaurant, so I walked up there by myself to wait for him. I sat on the windowsill near the back door and watched my coworkers flee the building like it was on fire.
A group of three guys in their 20's, either drunk or stupid or both, rounded the corner and headed my way. I turned slightly in the other direction so I wouldn't have to watch them as they punched each other and had a conversation that consisted only of the words "Fuck you. No, fuck you!"
They walked past me and I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the littlest one, shaved head and huge cholo style cross swinging from his fat neck, whirled around and clumped over to me. He got six inches from my face and said, "You're so not out of my league. I could totally date you." I was so stunned that I didn't do or say anything, just stared at him for about 8 seconds(a really long time to have a stranger close enough to lick) until he smirked and said, "It's so true," and then ran to catch up with his buddies, who hadn't even noticed that he had peeled off from the group. The 'fuck you's' started up again and dopplered out of my hearing range.
Still, no Chris. I went into the back area, not feeling as safe outside anymore, and checked the schedule. He had gone home early after a training. Curses!
What else?
Not much. Mom and I read for a while and Chris, Jackson, and Kristi played a cutthroat game of
Monopoly in the kitchen.
Kristi generously agreed to pick mom up for the 6am airport run the next morning. We said our sleepy good-byes, no tears thank god, and it was over.
The most stress-free, easiest, agreeable visit my mother has ever had. I know it's not what you were looking for, coming from me and my familial nutjobs, and so I make this promise now: Next year, we'll get her drunk.
Didn't really get up to much. We took a scenic drive on I-84 to scope out activities for mom's summer visit. Drove up to some building on a cliff that I can't recall the name of, and it was so windy, we couldn't even get out of the car. I attempted it, but had to abort the mission as my hat flew off my head, my glasses rattled on my face, and my nostrils flapped shut like a camel.
Kristi, Jackson, mom, and I went to Green Papaya for happy hour, where the service is pretty slow, but the blond bartender is cute and you can order all the cream cheese wantons you can eat for two hours. I'm not sure if the crunchy fried wrap is a vehicle for the cream cheese or the other way around, but it really doesn't matter. We each had an order and I pigged up almost half of them. Luckily, the mom and Kristi were distracted by the steak rolls and Jackson wasn't very hungry so no one slapped my hand away or anything.
The bartender only charged us for our food for some reason, I'd like to think it's because he thought we were all cute, but it was probably just an honest mistake. So we left him a $20 tip.
It was almost 6pm, time for Chris to get off work, and the library's only two blocks from the restaurant, so I walked up there by myself to wait for him. I sat on the windowsill near the back door and watched my coworkers flee the building like it was on fire.
A group of three guys in their 20's, either drunk or stupid or both, rounded the corner and headed my way. I turned slightly in the other direction so I wouldn't have to watch them as they punched each other and had a conversation that consisted only of the words "Fuck you. No, fuck you!"
They walked past me and I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the littlest one, shaved head and huge cholo style cross swinging from his fat neck, whirled around and clumped over to me. He got six inches from my face and said, "You're so not out of my league. I could totally date you." I was so stunned that I didn't do or say anything, just stared at him for about 8 seconds(a really long time to have a stranger close enough to lick) until he smirked and said, "It's so true," and then ran to catch up with his buddies, who hadn't even noticed that he had peeled off from the group. The 'fuck you's' started up again and dopplered out of my hearing range.
Still, no Chris. I went into the back area, not feeling as safe outside anymore, and checked the schedule. He had gone home early after a training. Curses!
What else?
Not much. Mom and I read for a while and Chris, Jackson, and Kristi played a cutthroat game of
Monopoly in the kitchen.
Kristi generously agreed to pick mom up for the 6am airport run the next morning. We said our sleepy good-byes, no tears thank god, and it was over.
The most stress-free, easiest, agreeable visit my mother has ever had. I know it's not what you were looking for, coming from me and my familial nutjobs, and so I make this promise now: Next year, we'll get her drunk.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
December 27th:
was a day dedicated to shopping. Not stuff for the weak of heart or stomach. Jackson went with us for about an hour until mom got stuck in a sweater store at the mall and then he sort of wandered off to drink coffee and read. Good move on his part because the three of us went nuts.
We went from the mall downtown to northwest, where the parking is scarce and the girls all wear those super low-rise jeans. Intimidating. I wished I had worn the fancy new underwear that Kristi had given me. I feel like I'm in a superhero costume in those things, that's how cool they are. But I had decided to save them for a 'special occasion,' whatever that means. It turned out to mean today, I'm wearing them right now. I could rip off my clothes and clothespin a fleece throw blanket thingy around my neck and become my alter ego "Vitamin A."
I was the only person who bought nothing. I just couldn't get into it. Oh, well. Less crap for me, cluttering up my space.
We had chicken salad sandwiches at the Daily Cafe in the Pearl, and made plans for that evening.
After I drove the ladies and their loot home, we got bundled up and jumped back in the car to go to the Festival of Lights at the Grotto. A huge Catholic outdoor sanctuary, it is actually one of my favorite places. It's always peaceful and no one hassles you. I light a few candles and sit and just breathe. Very meditative.
But the F.O.L. is a huge deal. They decorated the whole place with buttloads of lights depicting the story of the baby Jesus, hauled in dinner theater actors to portray people of that time, there was a spanish folk singer in the actual church, Feliz Navidad and all that crap, and best of all, a petting zoo stocked with baby goats, sheep, ponies, and chickens. I could have spent all night in there. I loved the goats. Yay! Yay for mini animals that butt up against your leg for food!
Mom spent almost an hour in the two gift stores, looking for 'the perfect angel' for her collection and ended up buying one that was made in Eden Prarie, MN, about an hour from her house. I started obsessively separating the saint medallions that had been mixed together in their bins, until Kristi stopped me. Just being in there with all that stuff made my stomach hurt.
When we got home, Jackson and Chris made pizza and we all played gin, my mom picking up the game as we went and sort of adapting it to her liking.
"Well, it just doesn't make sense to discard another card if I just played something."
"Mom, that's a good thing. You WANT to get rid of your cards. You should want to play as much as you can when it's your turn."
"I'm just saying, it doesn't make any sense."
Mom. Sigh.
was a day dedicated to shopping. Not stuff for the weak of heart or stomach. Jackson went with us for about an hour until mom got stuck in a sweater store at the mall and then he sort of wandered off to drink coffee and read. Good move on his part because the three of us went nuts.
We went from the mall downtown to northwest, where the parking is scarce and the girls all wear those super low-rise jeans. Intimidating. I wished I had worn the fancy new underwear that Kristi had given me. I feel like I'm in a superhero costume in those things, that's how cool they are. But I had decided to save them for a 'special occasion,' whatever that means. It turned out to mean today, I'm wearing them right now. I could rip off my clothes and clothespin a fleece throw blanket thingy around my neck and become my alter ego "Vitamin A."
I was the only person who bought nothing. I just couldn't get into it. Oh, well. Less crap for me, cluttering up my space.
We had chicken salad sandwiches at the Daily Cafe in the Pearl, and made plans for that evening.
After I drove the ladies and their loot home, we got bundled up and jumped back in the car to go to the Festival of Lights at the Grotto. A huge Catholic outdoor sanctuary, it is actually one of my favorite places. It's always peaceful and no one hassles you. I light a few candles and sit and just breathe. Very meditative.
But the F.O.L. is a huge deal. They decorated the whole place with buttloads of lights depicting the story of the baby Jesus, hauled in dinner theater actors to portray people of that time, there was a spanish folk singer in the actual church, Feliz Navidad and all that crap, and best of all, a petting zoo stocked with baby goats, sheep, ponies, and chickens. I could have spent all night in there. I loved the goats. Yay! Yay for mini animals that butt up against your leg for food!
Mom spent almost an hour in the two gift stores, looking for 'the perfect angel' for her collection and ended up buying one that was made in Eden Prarie, MN, about an hour from her house. I started obsessively separating the saint medallions that had been mixed together in their bins, until Kristi stopped me. Just being in there with all that stuff made my stomach hurt.
When we got home, Jackson and Chris made pizza and we all played gin, my mom picking up the game as we went and sort of adapting it to her liking.
"Well, it just doesn't make sense to discard another card if I just played something."
"Mom, that's a good thing. You WANT to get rid of your cards. You should want to play as much as you can when it's your turn."
"I'm just saying, it doesn't make any sense."
Mom. Sigh.
December 26:
Kristi and I dropped mom off at Dosha the next morning at 9:30 to get her massage. We walked around Hawthorne, did some browsing at Fred Meyer for products that decrease eye puffiness. Lots of bottles of creams and gels that made startling promises with great before and after photos, but we were dubious and so just decided to get more sleep and drink more water.
I tried to return some underwear, but that store wasn't open yet.
Kristi had a massive stomach spasm and we ducked into Powell's bookstore to "deal with it."
After an hour of window shopping we went back to the spa and picked up mom, who came down the stairs to meet us like she had been beaten with a sock filled with oranges.
"Mom, are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah, it was great." She hobbled over to us, her hair wet, her swim suit balled up in a ziplock bag sticking out of her purse. "Now I know why I needed to bring my swimsuit. The whole room was soaking after the hydrotherapy."
"What exactly is hydrotherapy?" Kristi asked.
"They had this huge hose attached to the ceiling and a girl wearing a rubber apron came in and pummeled me with the spray for 15 minutes. Anyway, I think I can achieve a similar effect withe the garden hose hooked up to the kitchen sink. I'm going to have my boyfriend try it this summer. I'll just lay on one of those plastic lawn chairs."
Frightening.
I finally got to exchange my underwear and we all had a quick bite to eat at my house.
Oh, man, I totally forgot to tell you about the chicken Kiev.
We made it from scratch for Christmas Day Dinner. Kristi's boyfriend, Jackson, is a vegetarian, so he brought himself over some asparagus thing, but the four of us pounded out chicken breasts with my all purpose utility hammer until it was wafer thin. If you haven't pounded out raw meat between layers of plastic wrap, by God, you should. The sensation of hammering something's muscle is really primal, and I feel like it was better than therapy. I didn't even get all weepy. Progress made in leaps and bounds.
But then we made little raw chicken burritos with filling of sticks of butter and lots of parsely. A little milk, a little flour, a little frypan and then the oven. Ta-da! Delicious chicken twinkies, made from scratch right here in my own kitchen.
We watched Young Frankenstein while we ate. Merry Christmas!
I digress.
We went to the play 'Narnia' at the children's theater. I brought along a koala finger puppet and danced it around until my mother wrestled it from me and put it in her purse.
The snow queen actress was the best part of the play. She was fantastic. Mom gave me back my finger puppet and we went to pick up Chris for dinner.
Kristi wanted to go to the Farm, a tiny restaurant on Burnside, and so we went. We drank and ate and ate and drank. We even ordered desert.
After a whole day of rushing from one activity to the next, we were all ready to go to bed by like, 9:30.
Kristi and I dropped mom off at Dosha the next morning at 9:30 to get her massage. We walked around Hawthorne, did some browsing at Fred Meyer for products that decrease eye puffiness. Lots of bottles of creams and gels that made startling promises with great before and after photos, but we were dubious and so just decided to get more sleep and drink more water.
I tried to return some underwear, but that store wasn't open yet.
Kristi had a massive stomach spasm and we ducked into Powell's bookstore to "deal with it."
After an hour of window shopping we went back to the spa and picked up mom, who came down the stairs to meet us like she had been beaten with a sock filled with oranges.
"Mom, are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah, it was great." She hobbled over to us, her hair wet, her swim suit balled up in a ziplock bag sticking out of her purse. "Now I know why I needed to bring my swimsuit. The whole room was soaking after the hydrotherapy."
"What exactly is hydrotherapy?" Kristi asked.
"They had this huge hose attached to the ceiling and a girl wearing a rubber apron came in and pummeled me with the spray for 15 minutes. Anyway, I think I can achieve a similar effect withe the garden hose hooked up to the kitchen sink. I'm going to have my boyfriend try it this summer. I'll just lay on one of those plastic lawn chairs."
Frightening.
I finally got to exchange my underwear and we all had a quick bite to eat at my house.
Oh, man, I totally forgot to tell you about the chicken Kiev.
We made it from scratch for Christmas Day Dinner. Kristi's boyfriend, Jackson, is a vegetarian, so he brought himself over some asparagus thing, but the four of us pounded out chicken breasts with my all purpose utility hammer until it was wafer thin. If you haven't pounded out raw meat between layers of plastic wrap, by God, you should. The sensation of hammering something's muscle is really primal, and I feel like it was better than therapy. I didn't even get all weepy. Progress made in leaps and bounds.
But then we made little raw chicken burritos with filling of sticks of butter and lots of parsely. A little milk, a little flour, a little frypan and then the oven. Ta-da! Delicious chicken twinkies, made from scratch right here in my own kitchen.
We watched Young Frankenstein while we ate. Merry Christmas!
I digress.
We went to the play 'Narnia' at the children's theater. I brought along a koala finger puppet and danced it around until my mother wrestled it from me and put it in her purse.
The snow queen actress was the best part of the play. She was fantastic. Mom gave me back my finger puppet and we went to pick up Chris for dinner.
Kristi wanted to go to the Farm, a tiny restaurant on Burnside, and so we went. We drank and ate and ate and drank. We even ordered desert.
After a whole day of rushing from one activity to the next, we were all ready to go to bed by like, 9:30.
Aside:
Kristi called our dad last night and we all talked for a while. He asked if I liked my job and I told him that working at the library wasn't going to make me rich, but I enjoyed the work.
"That's important, see, that you like what you do. You like books and so you work at a library. I like to dig holes in the ground and put dead people in them, so I dig graves. You have to do something that you like."
For some reason, I thought you needed to know that about my father.
Kristi called our dad last night and we all talked for a while. He asked if I liked my job and I told him that working at the library wasn't going to make me rich, but I enjoyed the work.
"That's important, see, that you like what you do. You like books and so you work at a library. I like to dig holes in the ground and put dead people in them, so I dig graves. You have to do something that you like."
For some reason, I thought you needed to know that about my father.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
December 25th:
Mom was still snoring away on the futon in the living room until 9:30 or so, thank god.
I tiptoed into the kitchen and had a couple of the several hundred full-sized peanut butter cups we made the day before. I forgot to mention it in my last entry. The three of us ladies formed a sort of chocolate bark-peanut butter dough ball assembly line and cranked out a fridge full of candy in less than two hours. One of my greatest accomplishments to date, for sure.
Anyway, we pulled ourselves together by noon and headed over to a friend's house for brunch, where they served a menu straight off of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"-little poached egg muffins floating on sauteed porchini mushrooms in a cupcake liner made out of prosciutto, that sort of thing. Scrumptious. We brought over a box of our peanut butter cups. I didn't eat much as I had already ruined my appetite with candy, but I'm an adult and if I want to spend Christmas the way most 6-10 year olds spend the day after Halloween, it's my perogative.
Then we went back to our house for a rousing hour of opening presents. Since everyone gave everyone else exact lists with product numbers and sizes, there weren't any surprises, and the whole thing seemed sort of hollow. The exception to that being that I gave Chris a DVD burner and managed to keep it secret for two whole months. I told him I was getting him a new office chair. He was quite pleased. And he said he'll give me his old CD burner, and so we were both happy, materialistically speaking. Mom gave me a stapler, Kristi gave me some fun underwear that I'd never be able to justify buying myself. Kristi and I gave mom a massage scheduled for the next day. Wine was consumed. Chet Baker was played. Grocery bags used as wrapping paper were folded and recycled. The whole thing was really very civilized.
The five of us went to see The Life Aquatic in the late afternoon. Theater packed. People cranky. Chris had a mild anxiety attack. He doesn't like crowds. Movie was great. Best line was "We're not good husbands, are we? But I have an excuse. I'm part gay."
After the movie, more chocolate bark products were eaten, and we all passed out by 10.
Oh, happy day!
Mom was still snoring away on the futon in the living room until 9:30 or so, thank god.
I tiptoed into the kitchen and had a couple of the several hundred full-sized peanut butter cups we made the day before. I forgot to mention it in my last entry. The three of us ladies formed a sort of chocolate bark-peanut butter dough ball assembly line and cranked out a fridge full of candy in less than two hours. One of my greatest accomplishments to date, for sure.
Anyway, we pulled ourselves together by noon and headed over to a friend's house for brunch, where they served a menu straight off of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"-little poached egg muffins floating on sauteed porchini mushrooms in a cupcake liner made out of prosciutto, that sort of thing. Scrumptious. We brought over a box of our peanut butter cups. I didn't eat much as I had already ruined my appetite with candy, but I'm an adult and if I want to spend Christmas the way most 6-10 year olds spend the day after Halloween, it's my perogative.
Then we went back to our house for a rousing hour of opening presents. Since everyone gave everyone else exact lists with product numbers and sizes, there weren't any surprises, and the whole thing seemed sort of hollow. The exception to that being that I gave Chris a DVD burner and managed to keep it secret for two whole months. I told him I was getting him a new office chair. He was quite pleased. And he said he'll give me his old CD burner, and so we were both happy, materialistically speaking. Mom gave me a stapler, Kristi gave me some fun underwear that I'd never be able to justify buying myself. Kristi and I gave mom a massage scheduled for the next day. Wine was consumed. Chet Baker was played. Grocery bags used as wrapping paper were folded and recycled. The whole thing was really very civilized.
The five of us went to see The Life Aquatic in the late afternoon. Theater packed. People cranky. Chris had a mild anxiety attack. He doesn't like crowds. Movie was great. Best line was "We're not good husbands, are we? But I have an excuse. I'm part gay."
After the movie, more chocolate bark products were eaten, and we all passed out by 10.
Oh, happy day!
Monday, January 03, 2005
December 24th, Part 2:
After fondue, we all took naps. My mom sat upright on the couch with her mystery novel propped up in her lap, but she wasn't fooling anyone. Her mouth kept falling open and little snorkling noises would come out of her throat.
I curled up in my standard armadillo position and tucked my head under an afghan, hoping we would all fall deeply asleep and miss going out to the 11 o'clock church service downtown.
But mom was determined to go.
So at quarter to, Kristi, mom and I piled into the car and headed over to the church, where we wandered around, looking for a door. The building itself was huge and imposing, gray stones all looking very gothic, and there were only two small wooden doors, as far as we could see, bearing black metal hinges like the door to a steakhouse. We spotted a handicap ramp and figured, well, we're all a little handicapped, and rattled on the door until someone from the choir came out of the dressing room to see what all the rucus was about.
We should have gone through the steakhouse door.
Once we got settled in towards the back, mom nestled between us, I staged a raid on the donation envelopes, which were labeled "PEW OFFERING." I mean, come on.
The lessons were given by a woman with a walleye, very cute, one eye rolling dramatically to the right while the other looked straight ahead.
The minister gave a sermon on how baby Jesus was really born in the heart of the innkeeper's house, as that's where people in those times kept their animals.
A large man in front kept shouting out answers to the mininster's rhetorical questions.
A smaller man in the row ahead of us got a nasty case of the hiccups. The walleyed woman eventually came and sat down next to him.
The choir sang a bunch of songs and rang large bells.
I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open.
My sister nudged me and asked if I was going to take communion. I told her that I hadn't been to confession and that I'd probably burst into flames, my standard excuse for not partaking in the freaky cannibalistic ceremony that is transubstantiation. She whispered back that we were at a LUTHERAN church and that I didn't need to go to confession first. Oh, right.
We took communion. We dipped our wafers into a mug of wine held by a ten year old girl. My sister went for the grape juice, which is a popular alternative in this age of recovering alcoholics. She started to dip her wafer and the guy holding the glass said, "This is grape juice, but it's still the blood of Christ, shed for you."
"What?" she said, tilting her head to hear above the organ and the warbling of the congregation singing.
"Grape juice, not wine. But still the blood of Christ, shed for you," he repeated, leaning in.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you," she stepped over and got within six inches of his face.
"It's GRAPE JUICE!" the man finally raised his voice and shattered the illusion.
She dipped her wafer and stared at him, then turned and walked away.
I was having my own difficulties. The woman in front of me was wrestling with the ten year old, trying to grab the goblet from her to take a drink, a much more traditional way of doing things, although not nearly as sanitary. The kid was holding her own, attempting to stop it, but the minister intervened and let her take a drink, then wiped the edge of the glass and continued as if nothing had happened. I was paralyzed. I'm sort of an obsessive-compulsive freak, and along with that particular disorder comes a great fear of other people's mucus. If I dunked my wafer in there, it would be like kissing her, and who knew where she had been. We're all children of God, my ass! After a slight hesitation, I felt my mother push me with a hand to the small of the back. I dipped into the contaminated wine and put the wafer in my mouth and rubbed my tongue against the roof of my mouth with vigor, in an attempt to psychologically crush the germs that might have been in my few drops of the blood of Christ, shed for me.
When we got back to the pew, mom slid in first, leaving the two of us to sit next to each other. Bad move. Inappropriate laughter ensued, starting with giggles at the chorus to "Most highly favored lady, AMEN!" The hiccup guy couldn't get it under control. Neither could we. The whole pew vibrated with our shaking laugher. The choir walked through the aisles and the guy in front of us high fived one of the tenors. We lost it. People around us glared.
Mom ignored us.
Everyone said an "Our Father" outloud. The last half has been rewritten and revised so many times that no one knows what it originally was. Everyone diverged and said it the way they learned it. It sounded awful, everyone talking at once but with no unification. Kristi hee-hawed. Mom smacked her in the arm.
Mercifully, it ended. We left by the front door on the way out and shook the minister's hand. I caught a glimpse of hiccup man and the walleye woman. I started laughing all over again.
"You are going straight to hell," Kristi giggled in my ear.
"So are you, most highly favored lady," I snorted back.
After fondue, we all took naps. My mom sat upright on the couch with her mystery novel propped up in her lap, but she wasn't fooling anyone. Her mouth kept falling open and little snorkling noises would come out of her throat.
I curled up in my standard armadillo position and tucked my head under an afghan, hoping we would all fall deeply asleep and miss going out to the 11 o'clock church service downtown.
But mom was determined to go.
So at quarter to, Kristi, mom and I piled into the car and headed over to the church, where we wandered around, looking for a door. The building itself was huge and imposing, gray stones all looking very gothic, and there were only two small wooden doors, as far as we could see, bearing black metal hinges like the door to a steakhouse. We spotted a handicap ramp and figured, well, we're all a little handicapped, and rattled on the door until someone from the choir came out of the dressing room to see what all the rucus was about.
We should have gone through the steakhouse door.
Once we got settled in towards the back, mom nestled between us, I staged a raid on the donation envelopes, which were labeled "PEW OFFERING." I mean, come on.
The lessons were given by a woman with a walleye, very cute, one eye rolling dramatically to the right while the other looked straight ahead.
The minister gave a sermon on how baby Jesus was really born in the heart of the innkeeper's house, as that's where people in those times kept their animals.
A large man in front kept shouting out answers to the mininster's rhetorical questions.
A smaller man in the row ahead of us got a nasty case of the hiccups. The walleyed woman eventually came and sat down next to him.
The choir sang a bunch of songs and rang large bells.
I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open.
My sister nudged me and asked if I was going to take communion. I told her that I hadn't been to confession and that I'd probably burst into flames, my standard excuse for not partaking in the freaky cannibalistic ceremony that is transubstantiation. She whispered back that we were at a LUTHERAN church and that I didn't need to go to confession first. Oh, right.
We took communion. We dipped our wafers into a mug of wine held by a ten year old girl. My sister went for the grape juice, which is a popular alternative in this age of recovering alcoholics. She started to dip her wafer and the guy holding the glass said, "This is grape juice, but it's still the blood of Christ, shed for you."
"What?" she said, tilting her head to hear above the organ and the warbling of the congregation singing.
"Grape juice, not wine. But still the blood of Christ, shed for you," he repeated, leaning in.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you," she stepped over and got within six inches of his face.
"It's GRAPE JUICE!" the man finally raised his voice and shattered the illusion.
She dipped her wafer and stared at him, then turned and walked away.
I was having my own difficulties. The woman in front of me was wrestling with the ten year old, trying to grab the goblet from her to take a drink, a much more traditional way of doing things, although not nearly as sanitary. The kid was holding her own, attempting to stop it, but the minister intervened and let her take a drink, then wiped the edge of the glass and continued as if nothing had happened. I was paralyzed. I'm sort of an obsessive-compulsive freak, and along with that particular disorder comes a great fear of other people's mucus. If I dunked my wafer in there, it would be like kissing her, and who knew where she had been. We're all children of God, my ass! After a slight hesitation, I felt my mother push me with a hand to the small of the back. I dipped into the contaminated wine and put the wafer in my mouth and rubbed my tongue against the roof of my mouth with vigor, in an attempt to psychologically crush the germs that might have been in my few drops of the blood of Christ, shed for me.
When we got back to the pew, mom slid in first, leaving the two of us to sit next to each other. Bad move. Inappropriate laughter ensued, starting with giggles at the chorus to "Most highly favored lady, AMEN!" The hiccup guy couldn't get it under control. Neither could we. The whole pew vibrated with our shaking laugher. The choir walked through the aisles and the guy in front of us high fived one of the tenors. We lost it. People around us glared.
Mom ignored us.
Everyone said an "Our Father" outloud. The last half has been rewritten and revised so many times that no one knows what it originally was. Everyone diverged and said it the way they learned it. It sounded awful, everyone talking at once but with no unification. Kristi hee-hawed. Mom smacked her in the arm.
Mercifully, it ended. We left by the front door on the way out and shook the minister's hand. I caught a glimpse of hiccup man and the walleye woman. I started laughing all over again.
"You are going straight to hell," Kristi giggled in my ear.
"So are you, most highly favored lady," I snorted back.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
December 24th:
My sister came over for breakfast and we reviewed our plan of attack for the day. Inevitably, we discovered the need to make a run to Fred Meyer for chocolate bark and this French Vanilla creamer that my mother can't live without.
The actual shopping experience wasn't so bad. It was crazy in the store, to be sure, but tolerable. Kristi picked up a bottle of juice, as her tummy was giving her trouble and she felt that a dose of something packed with goodness might help the stress vibes subside.
Back in the car and fully enveloped in gridlocked parking lot action, she took a big swig of her juice and then handed it back to me for a taste.
"Mmm, yeah, that's good."
"Totally. I've never tried this kind before. It's loaded with raspberries."
Then my mom chimed in: "Can I have a sip?"
"Sure," I said brightly, and handed it back to the front seat. She grabbed onto the bottle at the very top, where the lip and lid twist together. She was wearing gloves. She dropped the bottle. It hit the arm rest and the contents of the almost full bottle exploded over the leather interior of the car.
Kristi somehow managed to pull into a parking space, to the annoyance of other circling cars, and jumped out of the driver's seat. My arm was covered in juice and so I got out too, thinking that she had some paper towels or rags in her trunk. I caught a glimpse of her standing at the trunk, clutching a gym towel, soaking from shoulder to waist, her jacket shiny with sugary liquid.
"There is raspberry juice..." She started calmly enough. "In my ARMPIT!"
Mom opened the window and started apologizing repetitively. We could hear her saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," over the idling of many cars, trapped at a nearby intersection.
I laughed. I couldn't help it. And I think it was okay for me to laugh, as I had juice up my sleeve.
"Do you want to swing by your house and get another jacket?" I asked through fits of giggles.
"Why? It'll just happen again." She tossed the sticky towel in through the car window and mom started wiping up juice from the leather seats, floor, and ceiling.
But soon we were back to the relative quiet of my house, and we got stuff ready for fondue.
Chris never fondued before, and we were eager to show him just how fancy it could be.
The cheese sauce we chose to make, however, had a bit too much wine in it.
The steak that Kristi and I picked out was great though. We bought it at New Seasons, from a gray-haired man in the meat department wearing a hat that said "MEAT LEAD" on it. We loved him immediately. We bought bacon, steak, the aforementioned chub of beef, and chicken breasts to pound into chicken Kiev on Christmas. We had been a bit confused about how the chicken rolls would stay together and hold their delicious buttery packets and so we asked him his opinion on every step of our vaguely formed 'recipe.'
He squinted at us over the glass case, leaned towards us and said, not unkindly, "What, are you guys just going to wing this then, or what?" Did I mention that we loved him? He brought out some special chicken from "the trailer" and we walked away from the meat counter with over $50 worth of animal products. I felt evil.
But his steak recommendation was fantastic. It was, by far, the hit of the fondue party.
"Why don't we do this more often?" I asked the three of them, chewing up my 20th piece of steak
After we were done eating, I took out the trash and came back inside to be greeted by the greasiest, beefiest smell ever. It took four candles burning almost continuously for three days to knock the smell into the background. So that's why we don't have fondue more often. I mean, even the towels in the bathroom smelled like oily meat.
My sister came over for breakfast and we reviewed our plan of attack for the day. Inevitably, we discovered the need to make a run to Fred Meyer for chocolate bark and this French Vanilla creamer that my mother can't live without.
The actual shopping experience wasn't so bad. It was crazy in the store, to be sure, but tolerable. Kristi picked up a bottle of juice, as her tummy was giving her trouble and she felt that a dose of something packed with goodness might help the stress vibes subside.
Back in the car and fully enveloped in gridlocked parking lot action, she took a big swig of her juice and then handed it back to me for a taste.
"Mmm, yeah, that's good."
"Totally. I've never tried this kind before. It's loaded with raspberries."
Then my mom chimed in: "Can I have a sip?"
"Sure," I said brightly, and handed it back to the front seat. She grabbed onto the bottle at the very top, where the lip and lid twist together. She was wearing gloves. She dropped the bottle. It hit the arm rest and the contents of the almost full bottle exploded over the leather interior of the car.
Kristi somehow managed to pull into a parking space, to the annoyance of other circling cars, and jumped out of the driver's seat. My arm was covered in juice and so I got out too, thinking that she had some paper towels or rags in her trunk. I caught a glimpse of her standing at the trunk, clutching a gym towel, soaking from shoulder to waist, her jacket shiny with sugary liquid.
"There is raspberry juice..." She started calmly enough. "In my ARMPIT!"
Mom opened the window and started apologizing repetitively. We could hear her saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," over the idling of many cars, trapped at a nearby intersection.
I laughed. I couldn't help it. And I think it was okay for me to laugh, as I had juice up my sleeve.
"Do you want to swing by your house and get another jacket?" I asked through fits of giggles.
"Why? It'll just happen again." She tossed the sticky towel in through the car window and mom started wiping up juice from the leather seats, floor, and ceiling.
But soon we were back to the relative quiet of my house, and we got stuff ready for fondue.
Chris never fondued before, and we were eager to show him just how fancy it could be.
The cheese sauce we chose to make, however, had a bit too much wine in it.
The steak that Kristi and I picked out was great though. We bought it at New Seasons, from a gray-haired man in the meat department wearing a hat that said "MEAT LEAD" on it. We loved him immediately. We bought bacon, steak, the aforementioned chub of beef, and chicken breasts to pound into chicken Kiev on Christmas. We had been a bit confused about how the chicken rolls would stay together and hold their delicious buttery packets and so we asked him his opinion on every step of our vaguely formed 'recipe.'
He squinted at us over the glass case, leaned towards us and said, not unkindly, "What, are you guys just going to wing this then, or what?" Did I mention that we loved him? He brought out some special chicken from "the trailer" and we walked away from the meat counter with over $50 worth of animal products. I felt evil.
But his steak recommendation was fantastic. It was, by far, the hit of the fondue party.
"Why don't we do this more often?" I asked the three of them, chewing up my 20th piece of steak
After we were done eating, I took out the trash and came back inside to be greeted by the greasiest, beefiest smell ever. It took four candles burning almost continuously for three days to knock the smell into the background. So that's why we don't have fondue more often. I mean, even the towels in the bathroom smelled like oily meat.
December 23rd:
My mother's flight arrived early. Who's flight arrives early? How do they take a shortcut? Anyway, I got to the airport right on time, and she walked up to my car, looking intense, and as I got out of the car, her eyes got wide and she took a step backwards into traffic.
"Mom, what is it?"
"Your hair. It's...purple. REALLY purple."
It's true. I have purple hair. I had told her this over the phone and even sent a picture to avoid exactly this scenario.
I sighed and chose to let it go, hauled her enormous suitcase into the back of my station sagon, and drove her back to my house.
I asked her what she thought she might want for dinner, hoping to hear the magic words "Taco Salad"(see previous entry for reference here) and she just looked at me.
"I'm not really hungry now," she said.
"No, but what about later? Isn't there anything you might want?" I was digging here, desperate for my prediction to come true.
"I can't think of anything."
"You have no suggestions whatsoever to help me in planning dinner?" I actually started to grip the couch cushion rather hard, needing vindication.
She leaned forward a bit and said, in a quiet voice, "No. Nothing."
I freaked. I jumped up off the couch and yelled, "YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE SOMETHING LIGHT AND EASY?! LIKE A TACO SALAD?!"
"I knew that's what you wanted me to say, but I didn't want to give you the satisfaction. I know I'm predictable. You don't have to make such a big deal about it."
She laughed and I laughed and we decided on Taco Salad for dinner, because, you know, it's light and easy. And we had purchased a chub of beef, now just sitting in our fridge.
Later, my sister came over after attending her annual work holiday party. As she walked in the front door, she mouthed to me, "I'm drunk." Fantastic.
It was low key, really, that first day. Mostly just sitting around, sipping tea, catching up.
I offered to help transform the futon in the living room to a bed, but mom just wanted to sleep on it like a couch. She got all tucked in and had her tea cup and her heating pad and her Iris Johansen mystery there with her, but as soon as she was horizontal, she was out like a light.
I puttered around in the kitchen for a few minutes and then put my pajamas on, washed my face, and went to bed. I turned off the space heater and the lights and got nestled under the covers. First day done. No incidents to speak of.
Then I heard it. A snorting, rooting sound coming from the living room. I sat up. It sounded like a javelina rummaging through an overturned trash can. I heard it again, but it was more pronounced. I put my feet on the floor.
"Your mom is snoring." Chris said from behind his Game Boy. He was propped up on our bed playing a strategy game.
"That's my mom? Good Lord. Should I turn the heater back on? That might drown out the sound."
"Um...yes, please."
And so the heater stayed on all night, everynight, to cover the sound of my mother, the javelina.
My mother's flight arrived early. Who's flight arrives early? How do they take a shortcut? Anyway, I got to the airport right on time, and she walked up to my car, looking intense, and as I got out of the car, her eyes got wide and she took a step backwards into traffic.
"Mom, what is it?"
"Your hair. It's...purple. REALLY purple."
It's true. I have purple hair. I had told her this over the phone and even sent a picture to avoid exactly this scenario.
I sighed and chose to let it go, hauled her enormous suitcase into the back of my station sagon, and drove her back to my house.
I asked her what she thought she might want for dinner, hoping to hear the magic words "Taco Salad"(see previous entry for reference here) and she just looked at me.
"I'm not really hungry now," she said.
"No, but what about later? Isn't there anything you might want?" I was digging here, desperate for my prediction to come true.
"I can't think of anything."
"You have no suggestions whatsoever to help me in planning dinner?" I actually started to grip the couch cushion rather hard, needing vindication.
She leaned forward a bit and said, in a quiet voice, "No. Nothing."
I freaked. I jumped up off the couch and yelled, "YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE SOMETHING LIGHT AND EASY?! LIKE A TACO SALAD?!"
"I knew that's what you wanted me to say, but I didn't want to give you the satisfaction. I know I'm predictable. You don't have to make such a big deal about it."
She laughed and I laughed and we decided on Taco Salad for dinner, because, you know, it's light and easy. And we had purchased a chub of beef, now just sitting in our fridge.
Later, my sister came over after attending her annual work holiday party. As she walked in the front door, she mouthed to me, "I'm drunk." Fantastic.
It was low key, really, that first day. Mostly just sitting around, sipping tea, catching up.
I offered to help transform the futon in the living room to a bed, but mom just wanted to sleep on it like a couch. She got all tucked in and had her tea cup and her heating pad and her Iris Johansen mystery there with her, but as soon as she was horizontal, she was out like a light.
I puttered around in the kitchen for a few minutes and then put my pajamas on, washed my face, and went to bed. I turned off the space heater and the lights and got nestled under the covers. First day done. No incidents to speak of.
Then I heard it. A snorting, rooting sound coming from the living room. I sat up. It sounded like a javelina rummaging through an overturned trash can. I heard it again, but it was more pronounced. I put my feet on the floor.
"Your mom is snoring." Chris said from behind his Game Boy. He was propped up on our bed playing a strategy game.
"That's my mom? Good Lord. Should I turn the heater back on? That might drown out the sound."
"Um...yes, please."
And so the heater stayed on all night, everynight, to cover the sound of my mother, the javelina.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
My mother is coming out to visit for the holiday season. My sister and I have mapped out flowchart of activities to cover our bases for that week, and if we don't deviate from it, I think we'll be okay. My copy is a page from a month calendar, with the week in question full of little jotted notes and a few scribbles on the back. Kristi's copy is the same, with the difference of a whole notebook dedicated to the details, like what we'll be making for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and what board games are suitable for playing on what day. I know this sounds extreme. But it's the way it has to be.
My mom is predictable in the things she likes to do. She comes out to visit once a year, and inevitably we go through the same routine when she arrives.
1) I get the once over, like I'm a horse she's thinking of buying, and if there's anything drastic about my appearance(tattoos or, say, purple hair) that she hasn't seen yet, she'll tsk tsk.
2) We drop off her stuff at my house or my sister's, depending on where she's staying. Our living arrangements change so often that it's always a new landscape for my mom to sniff around and comment on. Like a dog going for a visit to a new place. She doesn't drink out of the toilet though. She does open cupboards. This time, I know she'll hone right in on the two pieces of Tupperware that just got stained last week by some tomato sauce. She'll pick them up and say, "This didn't have to happen. It's a shame, really. You know you can just spray some Pam in there before you put your leftovers in and it won't get discolored like this."
3) We'll talk about what to have for dinner. She'll say she doesn't want a big heavy meal. "How about we whip up something easy and light?" And here she'll pause and look contemplative, as if she's accessing a light and easy database, and then she'll say, "I know, how about taco salad?" and she'll head for the fridge to pull out the ground beef that she assumes is in there. After seven years of her first night request being taco salad, we have learned to have the ingredients on hand. But I don't want anyone to think that I'm the sort of person who keeps american cheese and a chub of ground beef in my fridge.
My mom is predictable in the things she likes to do. She comes out to visit once a year, and inevitably we go through the same routine when she arrives.
1) I get the once over, like I'm a horse she's thinking of buying, and if there's anything drastic about my appearance(tattoos or, say, purple hair) that she hasn't seen yet, she'll tsk tsk.
2) We drop off her stuff at my house or my sister's, depending on where she's staying. Our living arrangements change so often that it's always a new landscape for my mom to sniff around and comment on. Like a dog going for a visit to a new place. She doesn't drink out of the toilet though. She does open cupboards. This time, I know she'll hone right in on the two pieces of Tupperware that just got stained last week by some tomato sauce. She'll pick them up and say, "This didn't have to happen. It's a shame, really. You know you can just spray some Pam in there before you put your leftovers in and it won't get discolored like this."
3) We'll talk about what to have for dinner. She'll say she doesn't want a big heavy meal. "How about we whip up something easy and light?" And here she'll pause and look contemplative, as if she's accessing a light and easy database, and then she'll say, "I know, how about taco salad?" and she'll head for the fridge to pull out the ground beef that she assumes is in there. After seven years of her first night request being taco salad, we have learned to have the ingredients on hand. But I don't want anyone to think that I'm the sort of person who keeps american cheese and a chub of ground beef in my fridge.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
I normally receive 2 voicemails a week. Two nights ago I turned on my phone to see I had 8. Chris leaned over me on the bus and said, "Looks like someone really needs to get a hold of you."
Was he correct?
Call 1: my mother asking me to return her call so we could discuss the slippers she purchased for my sister as a christmas present. She bought two different pairs and needed my opinion on which would be best.
Call 2: my sister telling me that she just talked to our mom and that the conversation had left her angry because my mom requested that we all go to a lutheran church service on Christmas eve. I am informed that I am to figure that plan out myself.
Call 3: my ex husband telling me that he is planning on forging my signature on a check for an insurance refund and to not turn him in or send him to jail. Also our dog is life-threateningly sick and I should just call him to schedule time to see him soon.
Call 4: my boyfriend's father, calling to ask me what he should get Chris for Christmas.
Call 5: my college friend, informing me he will be in town the next day with his wife and do I want to hang out?
Call 6: my mother, again, telling me that the slipper thing is really important because she needs to get one pair or the other in the mail tomorrow and she'll call me back again if I don't call back soon.
Call 7: my sister, again, asking me to go out for drinks at a bar where a musician who happens to think I am bat shit crazy will be playing.
Call 8: my mother, again, telling me that it has been 25 minutes since she last called and that it is REALLY IMPORTANT for me to GET BACK TO HER ABOUT THE SLIPPERS ALREADY!
I'm thinking about having the phone shut off, I really am.
Was he correct?
Call 1: my mother asking me to return her call so we could discuss the slippers she purchased for my sister as a christmas present. She bought two different pairs and needed my opinion on which would be best.
Call 2: my sister telling me that she just talked to our mom and that the conversation had left her angry because my mom requested that we all go to a lutheran church service on Christmas eve. I am informed that I am to figure that plan out myself.
Call 3: my ex husband telling me that he is planning on forging my signature on a check for an insurance refund and to not turn him in or send him to jail. Also our dog is life-threateningly sick and I should just call him to schedule time to see him soon.
Call 4: my boyfriend's father, calling to ask me what he should get Chris for Christmas.
Call 5: my college friend, informing me he will be in town the next day with his wife and do I want to hang out?
Call 6: my mother, again, telling me that the slipper thing is really important because she needs to get one pair or the other in the mail tomorrow and she'll call me back again if I don't call back soon.
Call 7: my sister, again, asking me to go out for drinks at a bar where a musician who happens to think I am bat shit crazy will be playing.
Call 8: my mother, again, telling me that it has been 25 minutes since she last called and that it is REALLY IMPORTANT for me to GET BACK TO HER ABOUT THE SLIPPERS ALREADY!
I'm thinking about having the phone shut off, I really am.
Monday, November 08, 2004
So, last night, I'm relaxing with my huge bowl of pasta, propped up in my bed, watching a Mel Gibson movie, and waiting for my boyfriend to call from the bus station to say he's back in town. He had gone to the coast for the weekend to stay with his mother and her new boyfriend. He expected to arrive home at about 11pm. It was only 8:30, the movie was over, and it was on a tape I had swiped from my mom several years ago. I let it keep running, as I was so stuffed with pasta, I didn't feel like moving. And it felt good to just veg out for a while. After a few minutes of taped ShoTime commercials while I stare at the ceiling I hear it. The boink-boink music of soft core porn. I look at the television at see a smoky black intro, with a blond woman holding her finger to her lips in the International Symbol for "Shhh!" only this was supposed to be a sexy shushing, not like someone at the movies trying to tell the obnoxious teenagers behind them to shut up. More of the bow-chicka-bow-bow music. Playboy presents: Women's Stories. It was this half-hour soft core housewife fantasy show. The acting was unbelievable. The plots were even worse. In the first episode, a woman falls in love with the apparition of a Mexican bandit that she knew in a former life. In the second, a married woman takes on a job as a high-priced hooker for a writing assignment, and likes it. I kept thinking, "Holy Shit! My mother taped this!"
After those shows, a movie started that was called "Under Lock and Key." Or something along those lines. Women in prison and the drama and nudity that goes along with it. Incredible! Who knew that my mom was interested in this sort of, ahem, stimulation? Well, I was fascinated and so I had to watch it all. It wasn't really doing anything for me, but hey, it was entertaining, and bad porn is better than no porn.
At about 9, halfway through the prison movie, I heard a jingling of keys and a general bumping around outside the front door. I got out of bed and opened the front door to see what was going on and yay! Chris was home! But so was his mom! And her new boyfriend!
I ran back into the bedroom, which is right off the entryway, and turned off the incriminating sounds of the women guards interrogating some of the naughtier prisoners. I popped back out into the living room in a flash, no problem, just a little flustered at what a close call it was.
I'm shaking hands with everyone, meeting for the first time, and I notice Michael looking at the coffee table with solemn interest.
I look down with him and see the Playboy a friend had given Chris for his birthday glaring up like a light in a darkened room. It was nothing, really. It was the issue from the month and year Chris had been born, and in the early seventies all they showed was a little boobage, nothing too flammable. But these people were Mormons, meeting me and seeing our house for the first time.
Pushing my panic down, I nonchalantly moved my backpack to cover the possibly offensive magazine and sat down on the coffee table to futher hinder any investigation into the items on it.
Chris presented me with a pair of dish-washing mittens with the sponges built in. I loved them, but was obviously distracted. What else was lying around the house, waiting to be discovered?
Everyone moved into the kitchen. New pictures of Chris' dad and stepmom had just come in the mail, and they were prominently displayed on the counter. Unfortunately, there weren't any of Chris' mom anywhere to be seen. Ack!
He was showing them the pictures on the fridge, one of which was taken on the night my mother got drunk at a drag show and vomited all over downtown. It was a long night. The picture is of me, my sister, and my mother with the star of the drag show, Darcelle. Chris' mom looked at me and asked if the large woman in the picture with the huge glittery blond wig was a relative. Chris started laughing and backed away. I had to say no.
"He's, um, an entertainer in town? He does, like, a burlesque show?" My voice had taken on that annoying thing where everything gets turned into a question.
They stayed all of five minutes, but between the two-pronged porn fiasco, no pictures, and the fact that I'm almost 30 years old and am still terrified of parents, no matter whose, it was probably best that they didn't stay long.
Chris and I watched the rest of the prison movie together after his mom and her boyfriend left, drinking soda and laughing, and my life didn't seem so offensive anymore.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
He hobbled around the circular floor plan, leaning heavily on his cane, light blue cotton pajamas stained in the crotch from a few 'accidents.' he'd lived his whole life never thinking, never suspecting for a minute that once he reached an age where he'd be free from the shackles of work to do anything he wanted that he'd have to spend most of his time running to the bathroom. If he didn't make it, his wife helped him change his pajamas and put the wet ones directly in the washer, but lately she'd been leaving them in a damp heap at the end of the bed. It was a gesture that made him feel uneasy in a way that he couldn't quite pin down, but that he didn't feel like dealing with.
He continued his circuit around the house, clutching the old-fashioned incense burner with his index finger as best he could, waving his arm through the air after he steadied himself with his cane, shuffling in his sheepskin slippers, the ones his son had made for him in 4-H. He slid his legs far enough apart to hold him still. When the smoke had gathered in a thick cloud, he sighed and wandered creakily along.
The cheap Turkish incense obliterated the smell of the rosemary chicken he had made earlier for Sunday dinner. He still insisted on doing the butchering himself, even though his wife said that it was really a job for his son now, as the main able-bodied man of the farm, to choose and kill the evening meal. But he held onto it because it was his routine and he didn't know how to let it go. He wanted to feel useful, and now, at 66, with no job and his granddaughters old enough to not need constant looking after, the best thing he could do with his days was make it from sunrise to sunset without wetting himself.
"Goddamn golden years my ass!" he said to himself, and thought about how that evening's chicken had struggled in his hand as he grabbed it by the scaly legs and flopped it onto the chopping block, soft feathers already coming loose and floating around them both, like snow, like soap flakes.
He entertained no anthropomorphic ideas about the animals on his farm. He discouraged his granddaughters from naming even the rangy barn cats, who prowled the back woods for commission in rat carcasses.
"No use naming something you're going to eat for supper. Same goes for those cats. They're meaner than anything and they'd just as soon bite you," he'd say. The girls would listen solemnly and nod, then not only name them, but capture and dress them in headbands and put bows on their tails.
Something about that night's chicken had given him pause. His fluid practiced motions had seemed clumsy. The chicken's frenzied squawks unnerved him. He struggled with the iron piece that fit over the bird's head and neck. It didn't slide easily and made the process seem cruel.
When he finally held the small ax and delivered the blow that sent the tiny feathered head to the floor, his hand was shaking. He released his sweaty grip on the headless body and it tumbled to the ground, ran into the wall, backed up and did it again.
He felt tears welling up in his rhuemy eyes and blinked back their burning humiliation. Crying over a chicken wasn't for him. Not ever.
He continued his circuit around the house, clutching the old-fashioned incense burner with his index finger as best he could, waving his arm through the air after he steadied himself with his cane, shuffling in his sheepskin slippers, the ones his son had made for him in 4-H. He slid his legs far enough apart to hold him still. When the smoke had gathered in a thick cloud, he sighed and wandered creakily along.
The cheap Turkish incense obliterated the smell of the rosemary chicken he had made earlier for Sunday dinner. He still insisted on doing the butchering himself, even though his wife said that it was really a job for his son now, as the main able-bodied man of the farm, to choose and kill the evening meal. But he held onto it because it was his routine and he didn't know how to let it go. He wanted to feel useful, and now, at 66, with no job and his granddaughters old enough to not need constant looking after, the best thing he could do with his days was make it from sunrise to sunset without wetting himself.
"Goddamn golden years my ass!" he said to himself, and thought about how that evening's chicken had struggled in his hand as he grabbed it by the scaly legs and flopped it onto the chopping block, soft feathers already coming loose and floating around them both, like snow, like soap flakes.
He entertained no anthropomorphic ideas about the animals on his farm. He discouraged his granddaughters from naming even the rangy barn cats, who prowled the back woods for commission in rat carcasses.
"No use naming something you're going to eat for supper. Same goes for those cats. They're meaner than anything and they'd just as soon bite you," he'd say. The girls would listen solemnly and nod, then not only name them, but capture and dress them in headbands and put bows on their tails.
Something about that night's chicken had given him pause. His fluid practiced motions had seemed clumsy. The chicken's frenzied squawks unnerved him. He struggled with the iron piece that fit over the bird's head and neck. It didn't slide easily and made the process seem cruel.
When he finally held the small ax and delivered the blow that sent the tiny feathered head to the floor, his hand was shaking. He released his sweaty grip on the headless body and it tumbled to the ground, ran into the wall, backed up and did it again.
He felt tears welling up in his rhuemy eyes and blinked back their burning humiliation. Crying over a chicken wasn't for him. Not ever.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
so i've been invited to be in a show at pacific switchboard for the month of december in which artists who normally eschew drawing as their main mode of operation will draw three-panel comic strips and then show them to the greater metropolitan area.
last night i finally finished my drawings: three pieces with three hand drawn "polaroids" of a monkey puppet on vacation in CA. based on a series of real polaroids by my friend annabelle. my process for cutting and pasting is pretty weird, as i just realized this morning. i sit right in front of the television and put on a hollywood blockbuster that i've seen ten times and just listen to the dialogue and spread gluestick around or whatever needs to be done. last night i watched fight club, the game, and part of election before i started to nod off. i finished the monkeys, my new zine, and all of my sewing projects. pretty goddamn exciting stuff.
i'm really getting anxious for november to start so i can begin the nanowrimo novel. i don't feel like i should start any other writing projects this week because they're just going to get forgotten for the next four weeks(or longer).
so i just keep jogging my leg up and down and web surf.
anyone who wants to keep up with my novel progress for the month of november can visit getdivorced.blogspot.com. i do not apologize for what will surely be a thinly veiled version of reality...
last night i finally finished my drawings: three pieces with three hand drawn "polaroids" of a monkey puppet on vacation in CA. based on a series of real polaroids by my friend annabelle. my process for cutting and pasting is pretty weird, as i just realized this morning. i sit right in front of the television and put on a hollywood blockbuster that i've seen ten times and just listen to the dialogue and spread gluestick around or whatever needs to be done. last night i watched fight club, the game, and part of election before i started to nod off. i finished the monkeys, my new zine, and all of my sewing projects. pretty goddamn exciting stuff.
i'm really getting anxious for november to start so i can begin the nanowrimo novel. i don't feel like i should start any other writing projects this week because they're just going to get forgotten for the next four weeks(or longer).
so i just keep jogging my leg up and down and web surf.
anyone who wants to keep up with my novel progress for the month of november can visit getdivorced.blogspot.com. i do not apologize for what will surely be a thinly veiled version of reality...
Monday, October 25, 2004
the sweater that i'm wearing smells like dimestore perfume. no, highschool locker room/'love's baby soft' or maybe 'exclamation!' and it is killing me. i bought this sweater used and of course i washed it, even added on the extra rinse cycle, just to cover my bases. i laid it out to dry and this morning, when it should have been scented with nothing more offensive than the tattered dryer sheet that has been floating around in the dryer for months, it instead reeked of adolescence. not that teenagers smell badly on purpose. but i remember the deadly combination of body spritzes and cafeteria lunches mingling daily in my clothes. and sweat. anxious sweat. christ, i was soaked through all the time. i had to put deoderant on the insides of my thighs to help squelch the smell of fear that oozed out of every pore on my body.
so now i'm not sure what to do about this otherwise great sweater...run it through the washer with every load of clothes until it becomes tame? hand wash it in baking soda? try to resell it?
the good part: the day i bought it, i took 10 things with me into the dressing room. my hit average in a situation like that is about 10%--on a GOOD day. but everything worked. not just 'well, it fits alright and maybe i could rip off that stupid patch,' but really worked. my ass looked great in every pair of jeans. the sweaters weren't itchy. the black t-shirts weren't cropped above the navel. perfect. the only thing that didn't work out was a purple sweater that didn't match the purple in my hair. and it's important to coordinate a little bit with neon hair. so i walked out with 3 things on one finger that i couldn't quite justify and 7 on the other and the attendant reached for the larger group of hangers and i shook my head at him and handed him the smaller bunch and he gave the a google eye and i nodded and smiled a smug little smile and he said, 'wow, that never happens.'
so now i'm not sure what to do about this otherwise great sweater...run it through the washer with every load of clothes until it becomes tame? hand wash it in baking soda? try to resell it?
the good part: the day i bought it, i took 10 things with me into the dressing room. my hit average in a situation like that is about 10%--on a GOOD day. but everything worked. not just 'well, it fits alright and maybe i could rip off that stupid patch,' but really worked. my ass looked great in every pair of jeans. the sweaters weren't itchy. the black t-shirts weren't cropped above the navel. perfect. the only thing that didn't work out was a purple sweater that didn't match the purple in my hair. and it's important to coordinate a little bit with neon hair. so i walked out with 3 things on one finger that i couldn't quite justify and 7 on the other and the attendant reached for the larger group of hangers and i shook my head at him and handed him the smaller bunch and he gave the a google eye and i nodded and smiled a smug little smile and he said, 'wow, that never happens.'
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
things that are making my suppressed rage threaten to boil over:
1) they stole my goddamn motherfucking plant off of my front porch, not fifteen feet from my sleeping head. we are light sleepers, and neither of us can believe that we did not wake up when they, the insidious "they" decided they wanted my sick, scraggly ficus that i had put outside for a few days to see if i could revive it enough to justify repotting it. so i walked around the neighborhood, looking to see if i could spot my plant in a strangers yard or on their porch so i could deliver my version of swift retribution (ie-calling my sister while staring at my plant(if it were indoors) and talk about how great it would be if i had the balls to throw a rock through their window and make off with what was mine anyway, or(!), if my plant were outside, simply walking up and running away with it, which would be sort of hard to do no matter what because it's a pretty big plant, not easily movable, which just makes me even more upset, because, like i said, one of us should have heard something.). of course i didn't see my plant, although i know where some people who like to kick dogs for fun live and it's probably them. also, walking around, i saw meriad other things on other people's porches that were way cooler and more easily takable than my sickly plant. grr...
2)the overwhelming smell that is the potpourri of the public building that i work in is absolutely over the top today: a mixture of rotten milk, halitosis, BO, insincerity, and the notorious 'waft and walk.'
3) cramps. blindsided by my womanhood, i always forget how bad it can make me want to rip someone else's hair out by the roots and then make them eat it.
4) who(m)ever is stealing our mail. i will find you, one day it will happen, and we will lock eyes and you will run to escape my wrath, but all that will happen is you will run into the path of an oncoming bakery truck and have both of your legs broken in the accident, and also your neck, and you will pay mightily for your sins against me as a postal customer. asshole.
1) they stole my goddamn motherfucking plant off of my front porch, not fifteen feet from my sleeping head. we are light sleepers, and neither of us can believe that we did not wake up when they, the insidious "they" decided they wanted my sick, scraggly ficus that i had put outside for a few days to see if i could revive it enough to justify repotting it. so i walked around the neighborhood, looking to see if i could spot my plant in a strangers yard or on their porch so i could deliver my version of swift retribution (ie-calling my sister while staring at my plant(if it were indoors) and talk about how great it would be if i had the balls to throw a rock through their window and make off with what was mine anyway, or(!), if my plant were outside, simply walking up and running away with it, which would be sort of hard to do no matter what because it's a pretty big plant, not easily movable, which just makes me even more upset, because, like i said, one of us should have heard something.). of course i didn't see my plant, although i know where some people who like to kick dogs for fun live and it's probably them. also, walking around, i saw meriad other things on other people's porches that were way cooler and more easily takable than my sickly plant. grr...
2)the overwhelming smell that is the potpourri of the public building that i work in is absolutely over the top today: a mixture of rotten milk, halitosis, BO, insincerity, and the notorious 'waft and walk.'
3) cramps. blindsided by my womanhood, i always forget how bad it can make me want to rip someone else's hair out by the roots and then make them eat it.
4) who(m)ever is stealing our mail. i will find you, one day it will happen, and we will lock eyes and you will run to escape my wrath, but all that will happen is you will run into the path of an oncoming bakery truck and have both of your legs broken in the accident, and also your neck, and you will pay mightily for your sins against me as a postal customer. asshole.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
inventory of foot locker underneath the television set in the bedroom:
animals, stuffed and ancient; with wind-up musicbox bodies that play sad lullabies that used to make me weep inconsolably when my mom would put me down for a nap: 2
teeth, puppy; from my dog jake-the ones i could snatch before he swallowed them and the one i found in his water dish: 3
yearbooks, highschool; in which my dorky photos will remain buried: 4
diploma, highschool; emblazoned with an otter wearing a graduation cap: 1
journal, leatherbound; stolen from some store in Minneapolis when i went through my post-adolescent klepto phase and still haven't had the heart to use, really: 1
coins, old baggie of; also containing an estee lauder solid perfume case shaped like a miniature handbag that belonged to my grandmother and that i keep thinking will eventually be worth a lot of money someday: 1
bank, piggy; stainless steel, filled with the "new" quarters my exhusband started collecting and a wad of crumpled $2 bills: 1
seed beads, boxes full of hideous: 3
sheet music, pilfered; from my high school choir room, lining my dream of becoming the choir's accompanist: 35
letters, envelopes of; from friends and boyfriends, kept because i thought i would need them someday to "remind me of the time when i used to have friends" (ugh!): 10
childhood, plastic horses from my: 0 (where did they all go? do you know how much money those things are worth now?)
negatives, ring binder of; mostly taken in my graphics design class in tenth grade, real quality work: 1
album, photo; containing like, 8 rolls of wedding pictures, kept in this box because what kind of person keeps wedding photos from a failed marriage within easy reach, and conversely, what kind of person throws away wedding photos of any kind? i mean, i have photos of my parents' wedding and i even like to look at them. they seem so happy and ignorant of what the next 25 years will bring: 1
photos, incriminating; where my nosering is clearly visible, back when i insisted on wearing one of those huge rings. my mom would still probably bust a lung over most of them as she's not a fan of facial piercings: 4
hair, dyed-black braid of; kept from the first time i ever cut my hair above my shoulders, a traumatic experience: 1
wisemen, plastic chinese; stolen from a garage sale, and jesus, you'd think someone would have caught me taking some of this stuff, i mean, i wasn't good at it or anything: 3
top, wooden; origin unknown: 1
journal, trip; blue and fuzzy, recording everything about my trip to hawaii with my husband and his parents except for the fact that i thought i was pregnant and therefore wouldn't let him take a helicopter ride over one of the volcano craters because it cost something like $200 and i figured we'd need all the money we had for, you know, dealing with the baby or whatever, and then getting my period in the middle of the night in our sweltering motel room where we were sleeping on the couch because his older sister and her husband called dibs on the bedroom and so i woke up with disabling cramps lying in a pool of my own blood and my husband took the bloodied sheets and my pajamas and washed them while i sweated and moaned on the deck and watched the roaches climb around on the railing, and you know i don't think i ever really said thank you to him for that moment of kindness: 1
animals, stuffed and ancient; with wind-up musicbox bodies that play sad lullabies that used to make me weep inconsolably when my mom would put me down for a nap: 2
teeth, puppy; from my dog jake-the ones i could snatch before he swallowed them and the one i found in his water dish: 3
yearbooks, highschool; in which my dorky photos will remain buried: 4
diploma, highschool; emblazoned with an otter wearing a graduation cap: 1
journal, leatherbound; stolen from some store in Minneapolis when i went through my post-adolescent klepto phase and still haven't had the heart to use, really: 1
coins, old baggie of; also containing an estee lauder solid perfume case shaped like a miniature handbag that belonged to my grandmother and that i keep thinking will eventually be worth a lot of money someday: 1
bank, piggy; stainless steel, filled with the "new" quarters my exhusband started collecting and a wad of crumpled $2 bills: 1
seed beads, boxes full of hideous: 3
sheet music, pilfered; from my high school choir room, lining my dream of becoming the choir's accompanist: 35
letters, envelopes of; from friends and boyfriends, kept because i thought i would need them someday to "remind me of the time when i used to have friends" (ugh!): 10
childhood, plastic horses from my: 0 (where did they all go? do you know how much money those things are worth now?)
negatives, ring binder of; mostly taken in my graphics design class in tenth grade, real quality work: 1
album, photo; containing like, 8 rolls of wedding pictures, kept in this box because what kind of person keeps wedding photos from a failed marriage within easy reach, and conversely, what kind of person throws away wedding photos of any kind? i mean, i have photos of my parents' wedding and i even like to look at them. they seem so happy and ignorant of what the next 25 years will bring: 1
photos, incriminating; where my nosering is clearly visible, back when i insisted on wearing one of those huge rings. my mom would still probably bust a lung over most of them as she's not a fan of facial piercings: 4
hair, dyed-black braid of; kept from the first time i ever cut my hair above my shoulders, a traumatic experience: 1
wisemen, plastic chinese; stolen from a garage sale, and jesus, you'd think someone would have caught me taking some of this stuff, i mean, i wasn't good at it or anything: 3
top, wooden; origin unknown: 1
journal, trip; blue and fuzzy, recording everything about my trip to hawaii with my husband and his parents except for the fact that i thought i was pregnant and therefore wouldn't let him take a helicopter ride over one of the volcano craters because it cost something like $200 and i figured we'd need all the money we had for, you know, dealing with the baby or whatever, and then getting my period in the middle of the night in our sweltering motel room where we were sleeping on the couch because his older sister and her husband called dibs on the bedroom and so i woke up with disabling cramps lying in a pool of my own blood and my husband took the bloodied sheets and my pajamas and washed them while i sweated and moaned on the deck and watched the roaches climb around on the railing, and you know i don't think i ever really said thank you to him for that moment of kindness: 1
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