Halloweenie Queenie

I felt reincarnated. For some reason, my 80’s Workout Queen costume had me feeling saucy enough to dance, jump, pump and flex through the wee hours. In between sets of crunches, leg lifts and sweating through my leotard; I managed to eat 4 brownies, 3 cookies, 2 slices of pizza, and consume a tin can pyramid of beer.

The smart bet was that my muscles would be sore on Monday. I didn’t believe them! I was invincible! I was grand! I was Jamie Lee Curtis, Jennifer Biels and Olivia Newton John lumped like dough and smoothed out with a rolling pin. I was Pro Wing high tops with fluorescent yellow laces kicking my own palm, high above my head. I was hair so teased, I needed a sunroof. I was leg warmers so purple, I was workout royalty. I was cocaine. I was “Not!” and “Radical!” and “Sike!” and “Like, whatever!”. I was a Motley Crue groupie breast flash away from trouble.

Today I am paying. My abs hurt. My hair is fried. My glutes are screaming. My hot pink nails are blinding me. My arms strained from the push-up attempt.

They ask me, “Was it worth it?”

I say, “Uhhh, like, totally, dude.”

Chapter 28

Winter 2005. First frost.

I feel like a giant. Blades of grass crush beneath my weight, breaking and shattering like drunken New Year’s flutes. Winter is coming. And I am helping with the mutilation.

“You got a light?”

I hadn’t had one; but he had known. We all had our routines here, waiting on the bus.

I noticed him this week, his renegade, brown jeep hat pulled low. Where did he come from? He was new to this bus, this stop, this time of morning.

Every morning, it’s the same, people squeezing side by side, slowly departing and delivering themselves to their jobs. Gradually, those in it for the long haul unravel and take up more space until, finally, there are 3 of us. And that is when he'd curl himself into a treble clef and doze to sleep, head bobbing like a storm-battered buoy.

Maybe I’ll make bus friends with the new kid. We will log hours of conversation. I will never know his name.

Winter is coming. And she will kill everything or shock it all into hibernation. The miserable strangulation is necessary in order to start fresh. Everything will either be reborn or emerge again.

And this year, let it snow. Let us have to shovel out of a blizzard. Let me watch my path more carefully. Let the fabric be sliced clean across, in razor blade accuracy, no frays looming. Let everything be new and curious and opened wide.

The Truth About 1980 and Spirituality - Part Deux

Shortly after the divorce, my mom went on strike and refused to cut the grass. My sister and I would spend hours waist high in the stuff, our thick, green haven, stamping out paths, playing He-Man in weed encircled hideouts, and hunting for snake skins. I could tuck myself away in our yard for an afternoon without being discovered. It lasted a short time. Mom moved on to her “mourning period”, which meant dressing in black and purchasing a push mower to help clear her mind and get in shape.

I had found serenity in the backyard a few years before that. It must have begun somewhere around the time my mother received the phone call, the call which brought the news of my Grandmother’s car accident. She had passed.

It was the first time I saw my mother cry. I hadn’t known super-heroes even had tear ducts. I felt lost and confused. I told her everything would be ok. She was unresponsive and the tears wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t help her. I scampered outside. Anywhere was better than there watching my mother fall.

I discovered then that the backyard had the makings of a church choir when the wind hit just right. Evergreen branches outstretched and flailing rhythmically against the house, the amplified soprano yelp of the front gate swinging closed, the sporadic yip of our dog like a renegade lead guitar.

I spent months there, alone. Laying my stomach across a swing and rocking back and forth face down. I was convinced the swing set was my conductor to heaven. I would swing until I got sick. And when I got sick, my stomach high up in my throat, it felt like my grandmother holding me, her being running warm though my body. I would close my eyes then and we would talk until I fell off, dizzy and spinning and on my back trying to focus on the clouds, trying to see her face.

I long for that sort of spirituality.

The Truth About 1980 and Spirituality

It was 1980 and I was mama’s little clone, wearing corduroy bellbottoms and a striped tee, cream with horizontal brown and orange lines. I was up to my knees in mischief. After the launch, I would have scheduled some time to terrorize my older but much smaller sister, who was presumably and predictably in her bedroom keeping to herself. Keeping far from my jokester ways.

A sturdy burnt orange, shag carpet was the ideal take-off strip for a good running start. I’d line up, fat knuckles sunk deep into the rug, fire a shot off in my head and GO! A few lightning paces and I would leap towards the kitchen floor and surf on fresh socks across the slick linoleum, and crash land into the sliding glass door.

My mom would shoo me. She would sternly emphasize my names, all 3 strung together with exclamation marks, and I would have no choice but to occupy myself in another area. My sister’s room. Indeed! It would be my mom’s fault for shooing me. It was how it usually worked.

That was no usual day, however. The recon mission had proven the floor unsuitable for such activity, as mom had just finished hot mopping.

The coast was too clear. I climbed onto a chair and opened the highest cabinets. This is where she hid the decorative frosting tubes. I would squeeze the tubes of their sugary pink, white, or yellow sweetness, fill my mouth to capacity and, seemingly in one motion, restore all incriminating evidence to their proper places.

This was my secret.

That day, it was a close call. The phone rang. I quickly slid kitchen chair back into its place right before my mom’s hefty footsteps turned the corner. She eyed me, my cheeks puffy and fingers clasped together resting on the table.

She reached for the phone, "Hello?".......

Fall & Progress

This would be a fantastic comedy tour. It was all Mary's idea. We had to do the old "f**ck, marry, kill" here which lead to a healthy debate and the recognition of severely different ideas. So much is happening. Guitar lessons, meeting with admissions person, old friends popping up, trip planning, Sox.

Lots of interesting stuff...But nothing poetic.

The world is gaining it's color back.

"Isn't this weather depressing?"
"Do you remember where I came from?"

The slight chill and storm clouds threatening the lake reminds me of Washington. It's fall and cold and wet and damp. What some others view as misery reminds me of my roots and that I am at mercy to the elements. A bad hair day is a small price to pay for feeling human.

SNL No More

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to adore Sarah Silverman as much as I do. Bold, unrelenting, brash, un-PC; the woman's comedy style packs an immodest spin kick to the jaw. The story goes, her SNL stint was shortened, fired via fax, after a risque abortion joke on Weekend Update.

"Jesus is Magic" hits Chicago theaters November 11th. Check out this sketch about her take over of Chappelle Show.

As for me, I've created a busy little stretch of life the last few weeks, with appointments set for checking into higher education and guitar lessons beginning next week. 28 years old. I guess I'll start getting my life in order and looking forward to it. After careful consideration, I've axed the whole "life of crime" idea. I didn't get an early enough start. If I had though! Boy! I'd be laxing on some beach in the Mediterranean, sipping Bloody Marys with a silver briefcase handcuffed to my wrist. Let's face it, I'm a bit too big to be shimmying through air shafts.

The end.

Sitting & Waiting

Sitting and waiting. Life actually moves most while sitting and waiting or on the way.

I was sitting and waiting for the little firework to arrive. Morning sunlight warms me through the window. I watch the people pass.

“Do you have a dog?” It was the old man, his weepy, blue eyes leaning in from his kitty corner position.

“No,” I say.

No animals here. I had played step-mom, step-aunt and step-sister to a bagful of cats at different points in my time. But, I have never purchased an animal on my own. And just that day, I had found my self whistling as I examined an outdoor Koi pond at the aquarium. I hadn’t been in the market for a fish; but why couldn’t I have one? I told myself I would just take a peek. See what was new in the fish world.

Soon, I found myself strolling the outdoor ponds. It was quiet and I was alone. The store manager caught me smiling then, when he emerged for the daily feeding.

“In the market for a pond?” He tossed teeny pellets into the green murkiness. Shocking orange and white patterns became more vivid as the fish neared the the surface, bumping each other aside and devouring the pellets.

“No….” I smiled.

A few quick wrist flicks and he spattered enough pellets to satisfy them. He examined my face, “It sure looks like you would enjoy one, miss.”

“It reminds me of home.” And by home, I meant my youth. Isn’t that the way it is?

I bent down and tried to hear the popping sound of tiny air bubbles bursting at the surface. “My grandma used to take my sister and I to the Ala Mauna Mall in Hawaii when we were kids. Clothes shopping! I hated it. But, cutting down the center of the mall was this system of running water leading into Koi ponds. Whenever we went to the mall, my grandma would leave us at the benches surrounding the ponds while she bought us shaved ice. Our consellation for being so good, which meant trying on a few skirts. So, we’d wait and pass the time by having contests to see who could touch the most fish. My grandma would come back and we would be soaked with pond water…..Anyway. What do you do with them in the winter?”

What would I do with a fish, aside from give it a name? You can’t pet them or cuddle with them or throw them a ball. But that was another story. Back to the old guy.

“I had a German Shepard once.” The old man said.

“Good dogs.”

“Yep. Good dogs. So, what do you do in the world?”

I wanted to say I was most things other than what I was….But, I didn’t.

“What about you, Bob?”

He didn’t respond for quite some time, “I own a machine making company.” His eyes, like a storm front coming, gazing through the window. He sipped his coffee.

“What kind of machines?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, the bad kinds.”

“Really…..” I watched his eyes shift and shape into nimbus clouds.

He took a long sip. “The kind that kill people. The kind in Iraq.”

I nodded.

“Petey, my German Shepard, he was a good and sweet and loyal thing. Right through the day he expired. Dogs. Not like people, you know? ”

Hey, Fatso! Yeah! I'm Talking To You, Brain!

As each inning of the Sox games have slugged along and all the Meirs talk has become hair-pulling political jib jab, I’ve been reading books to help take up some of the more useless minutes.

Recently, I’ve been reading up on Wilson's presidency. Interesting fellow. The more I learn, the more I learn I don’t know anything at all. I wonder how I could have allowed my brain to go so long without proper exercise.

The bit of propaganda declares:

Spies and Lies

German agents are everywhere, eager to gather scraps of news about our men, our ships, our munitions. It is still possible to get such information through to Germany, where thousands of these fragments—often individually harmless—are patiently pieced together into a whole which spells death to American soldiers and danger to American homes.

But while the enemy is most industrious in trying to collect information, and his systems elaborate, he is not superhuman—indeed he is often very stupid, and would fail to get what he wants were it not deliberately handed to him by the carelessness of loyal Americans.

Do not discuss in public, or with strangers, any news of troop and transport movements, or bits of gossip as to our military preparations, which come into your possession. Do not permit your friends in service to tell you—or write you—"inside" facts about where they are, what they are doing and seeing.

Do not become a tool of the Hun by passing on the malicious, disheartening rumors which he so eagerly sows. Remember he asks no better service than to have you spread his lies of disasters to our soldiers and sailors, gross scandals in the Red Cross, cruelties, neglect and wholesale executions in our camps, drunkenness and vice in the Expeditionary Force, and other tales certain to disturb American patriots and to bring anxiety and grief to American parents.

And do not wait until you catch someone putting a bomb under a factory. Report the man who spreads pessimistic stories, divulges—or seeks—confidential military information, cries for peace, or belittles our efforts to win the war.

Send the names of such persons, even in they are in uniform, to the Department of Justice, Washington. Give all the details you can, with names of witnesses if possible—show the Hun that we can beat him at his own game of collecting scattered information and putting it to work. The fact that you made the report will not become public.

You are in contact with the enemy today, just as truly as if you faced him across No Man's Land. In your hands are two powerful weapons with which to meet him—discretion and vigilance. Use them."

An interesting read, indeed.

If history tends to repeat itself, maybe this gives reason to stop all political talk on my blog.

Friend or Foe For the Common Good

This morning, I came upon an article on the new government mascot conjured to promote, or be an enemy of rather, energy waste. I couldn't help but think of all of the mascots I remembered from my childhood:



McGruff the Crime Dog, the loyal pooch who encouraged me to take a bite out of crime.



Smokey the Bear, the fuzzy, big pawed bear who endorsed that only I could prevent forrest fires.



Woodsy the Owl, the who-voiced owl, whom encouraged me to give a hoot and don't pollute.

What happened to those guys? Friends of children, who asked us to join them against crime and forrest fires and pollution? These guys were my best pals. I wanted to join their fight. I wanted to run to them in the streets and pretend I didn't know there was a man in the costume. I wanted them to hug me and realize I was doing all I could to make the world better.

Instead, this is the sort of thing kids are given today:



The energy hog. An enemy of energy. Hate, kids! Hate him! Get him! Kill him! If you see him, kick him in his costumed shin. I suppose this is how we encourage our kids today. To show them an enemy, tell them to be brave and not fearful (though they may have not been fearful until we told them they were) and encourage them to hate. To hate together because the energy hog is not like us.

What happened to the days of innocence? Of friends? Of unity? Of faith in goodness?

The Big Bean Teaches A Small Lesson

Sometimes, in taking a step back,

and even back more,

one can discover the truth of what was and fully appreciate the thing as a whole.

Even In Just the Dandelions

When all the pages were gone, leaving her piano colored ankh earrings dangling and unsatisfied, how she wished she had spotted them earlier, the moonbeam violets. Earlier, the debate, her scenario had proven to be true. How she hated to be right.

“They will surely die.”

“They won’t.”

“Sure they will. I don’t have anywhere near a green thumb.”

“Come on! Where's your faith? You see the world as half empty.”

“I do not.”

“Hmmm…..”

“Well.........More like 5/8ths empty.”

She had been right. They would die, the moonbeam violets. But, why hadn’t she noticed them until the stench? What was so damned important? She had been consumed replaying the conversation.

Tapping her compass from its dozing, fairly obsolete state; she realized the familiarity of the corner. She had been there before and there was no excuse for her getting lost. The bus came too quickly. The streets began sounding unfamiliar. Then the climb; 5000 W., 5006 W., 5010 W. and the lettered marquee on the opposing bus spelled out home. 5020 W., 5100 W., 5250 W. And yes, she was going the absolute opposite direction. She pulled the cord. They were waiting, loud cricket voices were waitng and laughed at her displacement.

She wished she had been a smoker. Instead, she kept her eyes large and waited on the night owl. It came in a chug beneath sleeping heads deep in their pillows.

Where do all the women go? After midnight, it was most all men. And on this bus, it was exclusively so.

“I………I was in the shit!” He proclaimed, dressed in tired fatigues. The bus streaked past California Ave. “You hear me?” He sized her up.

“We all are now, brother,” she muttled.

Why hadn’t she become a zookeeper?

“Fuck you, tree hugger. You ungrateful scoundrel! They’re just trying to remind us. We’re a 3rd world country now.”

“We’re a 3rd world World, guy. Welcome to it.”

That was that.

And that is what had consumed her from the moonbeam violets. She mourned the days of naivete and appreciation, when she found absolute truth in even just dandelions.