Meditation a la Mode

I am just sitting here, eating some ice cream and thinking deep thoughts. To wit:

• A very small spider has taken up residence in the corner of my office. It is a S.A.S. (spider of acceptable size), so I will leave it alone. I hope it doesn’t decide to walk across my lips in the night.
• When my twin sister and I were 5, we went to a birthday party that included a trip to the movies to see “Snoopy Come Home”. There’s a part where the Peanuts kids are singing, “Snooooopy, Snoooooopy, oh won’t you come home, come home, come home?” It is so sad. It tears you up inside. We started to bawl; we were inconsolable. Our mother had to come get us.
• We were always that way, getting each other worked up. We’d lie awake at night in our shared bedroom saying things to each other like, “wait … what if mom and dad …die?!?!?! Waaaah!” and then we’d barge in on my parents for comfort after working each other up into a red-alert fit.
• The Honda Element is butt ugly. I actually threw up a little in my mouth when one passed me today.
• When I was six, I threw a giant rock into Lake Huron. Well, I threw it towards Lake Huron. At the precise moment it reached her area, my younger sister stood up and the rock ended its trajectory on the back of her 2-year-old skull. Twin sister & I stifled her screams because we didn’t want to get in trouble. Don’t worry, she was fine and later we told our mother (when we were 17).
• I just can’t wear a do-rag the way I did back then, young & carefree in Key West.

• I really, really miss Jim Henson. Viscerally. Deep in my belly. I love The Dark Crystal! I love when Kira is calling for those stilt-walker things and she yells, “kama leyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” I love when Aughra sniffs Jem and says, “Looks like a gelfling. Smells like a gelfling. Maybe you are a gelfling!!” I love the whole surreal, slow, mystical quality of it.

And did anyone else have a pleasant, albeit disturbing, semi-erotic response to the dog-dragon thing in Never-Ending Story? He’s this giant, strong, undulating, furry beast. How could I not feel a tingle?

• Somebody I know, after reading my comment about waking up in the dead of night with fears, shared the following: For years I used to wake up and check to make sure my breasts and vagina were still there. I had heard that people changed gender, and I thought it happened spontaneously. Just wanted to make sure everything was intact (She finally stopped a few years ago, when she turned 45).

I think I might have actually failed Organic Chemistry II, but the professor gave me a mercy D- because I used to go to his office hours every single day. For extra help, you sickies!

I got a 7% on my Calculus IV final exam. That's zero-seven. I was done in 23 minutes & spent the next hour and a half drawing bunnies all over my test. I was on Dean’s List every semester except the one after that calculus class (and organic); that semester I was on Academic Probation.

I did an independent study in Chemistry that consisted mostly of going out to lunch for Rocks & Wings with my professor. And trying to fix the mass spectrophotometer, which we never managed to do. And learning to shoot a revolver (picture later—in I Might be White Trash VI).

I saw somebody I knew at the grocery store today and I ran & hid behind the organic dairy display until she passed. I just wasn’t in the mood.

There’s a mentally challenged man who works in the cafeteria at my work, and every time he sees me he asks me the same exact question. I don’t know whether to be annoyed or compassionate. Aren’t I allowed to be annoyed by people, even though they are retarded? Dude, I answered you the first 54 times!!! I hate that I feel guilty for thinking “please shut up” every day, in my mind, at him.

I don’t really like Halloween that much. I plan to go out & leave my house dark. Yeah, it’ll be an egg magnet, but at least I won’t have to rummage through my pantry & give the kids canned goods when I run out of candy, like I did last year.

Vacation Meditation

I'm on this lovely little getaway, which I believe helps me to delve back into my writing brain. This is so much easier to do when I am not faced with the daily tasks of teaching, dinner, laundry, putting out the trash (hope jamwall remembers to do so in my absence ... ::knock knock:: cutie? couldja get on that?) So I've just been going on lovely little walks, and getting massages, and hot-tubbing, and dining. It is so lovely. All sort of thoughts creep in... float along on my stream of consciousness, won't you now?

I use "lovely" over-much in my speech. What a lovely word it is.

I went into this tiny, cluttered rock shop and got sucked into a conversation with the proprietor, who would not let me get a word or an excuse in... it was all about his past teaching career and how strict he was about kids using his equipment and how board of education kids get special treatment; all the stuff I'm trying to get away from. Talking, talking, talkinggggggg. I stayed the requisite polite amount of time and then began inching towards the door. All the while my brain was screaming, get out! get out! oh Goddddd, I'm going to die here. I was imagining my mummified remains being found hundreds of years in the future, one desiccated hand clinging to a coffee cup, the other to a doorknob. I was saved by my cell phone ringing, and I became one of those people, the ones who grab their cell phones and run out of a store. I only to pretended to answer, because I didn't want to talk to that person, either.

I really don't want to talk to anyone, sometimes.

Don't you feel just a tiny bit superior to the disgusting slobs around you when you return your cart to the grocery store paddock instead of leaving it astray in the parking lot? I know I do. My nodding benevolence was not affected in the least (well, perhaps slightly...) by the fact that the only reason why I returned the cart was that the cart lackey was out and about in the parking lot, collecting errant carts, and I wanted him to see just what a good citizen I was. Not like those others.

I'm always fascinated by blue toilet water, and by the alluring shade of green that it turns after I tinkle in it. Not that I ever looked, no no. I'm not disgusting. I'm just speculating. It would be OK if I looked though, wouldn't it?

It's difficult to be truly honest.

There is a little tot screaming so loudly outside that I feel compelled to go to the window and see what is the matter with it. I once heard a horrible story about a baby screaming in its crib and the mother ignoring it, ignoring, ignoring ... and then finally checking, only to discover that the family pet raccoon had eaten the baby's fingers. Horrifying. Now whenever I hear a baby screaming I yell, No, Bandit, no! Down, Bandit! Bad, bad Mr. McStripes!

I'm generally afraid of being partially eaten. I also read a Reader’s Digest Drama in Real Life story about a woman whose face was eaten by a cougar. I believe I have written of this before. Now when I walk in the woods alone, which is seldom (because of said cougar), I find myself touching my cheeks and wondering if my face is tasty. I do have a little bit of extra fat here & there, especially on my tushie, and I think a cougar would prefer that to my face. But you never know. I don't know from cougars. I believe I would much prefer to be swallowed whole, like Jonah. And Pinocchio. Even at age 7 I recognized that Pinocchio couldn't possibly be true. It wasn't the woodenness of the lad that told me; it was the fact that while he was in the whale’s stomach he remained completely intact; even I know that he would be wallowing in acids strong enough to burn a hole in a rug.

Why, when Biology teachers speak of stomach acid (HCl), is it always a rug that gets a hole burned in it?

And why oh why do I feel driven to sniff every little item that I put into the laundry, and then sniff again when I take them out? Why can't I just trust?

It is difficult to let go and just trust. Leap, and the net appears.

It would be delightful to try that, just once. I guess once would be all the chance I get, if it isn't true.

Meditation on a cup of perfect coffee

A long time ago I used to do a series of posts called Meditations; they were just free-roaming streams-of-consciousness things, but I did enjoy them. I have gotten so far from everyday writing; I think that using a daily writing tool will help me to re-lubricate the muscle and get back into a place where the ideas flow regularly. Like many blocked writers, I am haunted by the idea that there's nothing to write about. But we know that's not true, don't we?

Jamwall taught me how to make the perfect cup of coffee. He is so good at so many things. He is my hero. Anyhow, the coffee: It's easy; you just have to grind the beans right before brewing. He also has some sort of formula, which he was trying to tell me as I was putting on my makeup and he was using my computer to surf the internets ... it was all 24s and sixes and something about a scoop, but I stopped listening because I don't like measuring.

There is this ice cream truck that drives around the neighborhood playing its little ding-a-ling tunes, and today I swear it was playing Man of La Mancha. Who wants to eat ice cream when poor Don Quixote was so painfully thin?!?!? We should be buying him a cone!

I've discovered that the way to keep from mindlessly snacking in the evenings is to stay away from the TV and instead get involved in a project; so tonight I assembled this humongous steel shelving in my garage and organized all my garage crap onto it. I felt really productive and proud, instead of sleepy and lethargic, for a change. With summer coming I am kicking the motivated project-doing SG into high gear. I just realized that winter doldrums should be over, as it is indeed June.

At the old-fashioned theater where I went to hear Dar Williams on Friday, there is an insufficient railing on the balcony. As I stood next to it I had the temptation to throw myself over it. Well, not the temptation so much, as the scary thought of what if? ...I were to just do that? I scare myself like that sometimes. It's not the first time.

I miss Monkey and the days when all of us met in Monkeyland and frolicked together, semi-nudely. Ahhh, alas ... nothing gold can stay. And nothing furry can stay. Which reminds me; I need to shave my legs.

There are these dry-erase markers at work that have gone bad; I think they have started to ferment. So I take a whiff, and I say, Ew! These reek! Then I sniff again, make a face, and sniff again. What is wrong with me?!?!?

That's about all I can do today. I'll see you folks again soon. Tomorrow, if I can keep a promise to myself.

Meditation on the Alto Part of He Shall Purify

I notice I haven't been writing much original work lately; but it's because all of my love is going elsewhere, and not into my craft. Where is my love going, you may ask? To the following (order does not indicate priority or % of love given):

• 89 13-year-olds
• My new choir
• Tuyet
• My personal trainer
• Jamwall
• My family

The 89 13-year olds have been draining much of my energy lately, but since I am not a mom, they are satisfying my mothering needs at the moment. This includes the 3-day "vacation" in Boston. Oh, I forgot to tell you one thing that scared me:

I quit my old choir because the 75-minute drive was spanking all the joy of singing out of me. My new choir rehearses closer to my house, and has a bitchin' lineup of concerts! At this moment I am supposed to be practicing He Shall Purify from The Messiah for tomorrow's rehearsal, but instead I am making peach cobbler and posting some original writing. I shall sing shortly!

I started talking to Tuyet a while back and have befriended her in the last few weeks. She is desperately lonely, adrift in a sea of self-searching, eternally optimistic, and clueless about how to be a woman. We've been IM'ing as I try to give her advice on her spiritual quest.

I've been working out 2x a week with my personal trainer and exercising a few days a week on my own. Consequently, my pants are falling down. Consequently to that, I am getting lots of attention from passers-by. Luckily, I am wearing pantaloons (most of the time).

Jamwall has infected my brain with his sick and errant ways. His depraved and condiment-laden mildly pornographic comments, text messages, and emails have finally won me over. I am his to defile as he wishes. I hear cowbell in my sleep!!! On the more human side, he seems to be quite charming and could even be trained to be lovable. We have decided to have a Caesar Salad contest, in which we perfect our recipes and then put them to the test. I don't know how well romaine holds up to being mailed.

My family has not been getting enough of my attention, because I have been so busy. But birthday season is upon us (2 weeks, people!) which gives us all an opportunity to be together in love and harmony. Also, diapers. And yummy meats, slowly cooked.

Meditations on a Chilly Mannequin (reposting is my life)

Why are these poor, poor mannequins displayed in shop windows wearing next-to-nothing on a day when it is 22 degrees out? I, the potential customer passing by, am not tempted to buy these little items on a day like this, and especially when these cold, hard mannequins look so uncomfortable in them. Their cold, hard little nipples do not entice me either. They could chip ice. Eat a cheeseburger, you skinny perky bitch!

One time, in band camp … oh, who am I kidding? I never went to band camp! Estonian Girl Scout camp, baby! All the way! I think one of the high points of camp was when my friend Kulp and I decided to try “smoking” so we rolled up a bunch of cotton balls into a notebook-paper cylinder, lit it, and took a huge drag. After I recovered from the second-degree burns on my larynx, I decided that smoking might not be a healthy habit. It wasn’t until later that I began to crave the leaf, and while I never became a smoker, I kissed a lot of guys who did, just so I could get a contact buzz.

In 1984, also at camp, we went on this gigantic hike, wherein myself and 13 other people got lost in the woods of northern Ontario for 14 hours. It was scary, yet fun. At one point, we crossed a swamp, and Royd dropped all of the loaves of bread in the water. We survived on 2 boxes of raisins, a smoked meat stick, and 2 cans of beer shared between the 14 of us. We had already decided whom we would eat if we were lost for days, and luckily it wasn’t me (too stringy). As we hunted for a trail and fresh water, I decided I wanted to look pretty when they found my body so I put on blue eyeliner. 15 minutes later we hit a road and I’m pretty sure it was my blue eyeliner that scored us the lift from that pickup truck. Either that, or my 22 plastic bangle bracelets.

I was so fashionable in the 80's. Ohhhh, yeah. I had the little purse with the wooden handles and the interchangeable button-on covers. I had penny loafers with real pennies in them, sometimes dimes because I'm a rebel that way ... My hair feathered in the most perfect way, starting right in the middle at the part and traveling all the way down the side in a roll that ended at my shoulders. I wore the button-down shirt with the ribbon tied in a bow at my neck. And what about those sweaters with the puffy sleeves? Yes. Argyle vests? Yes. Knickers? Parachute pants? Adidas sneakers? Rubber bracelets? Headgear?? Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh god, yes.

I used to love shoelaces and ribbons with little pictures on them, like ice cream cones or pineapples, or little jumping frogs. I could not have enough of those. Today, I saw a girl with a belt that had little cherries embroidered on it, and I had a flashback to elementary school. It hit me like a wave. So fuck you again, Amy Campbell!

Meditations on a Fleeting Streak of Green (a.k.a. Reposting is in fashion)

I would love to see the Green Flash. Is that too big a request, sir? Hmm? Just once would be nice. One blink of emerald light to last a lifetime.

Is there anything lovelier than the chalk hopscotch scrawled on the sidewalk in front of the pizza place? Who plays hopscotch anymore? Somebody does, apparently … I love knowing that.

What is up with all the kids in wheelchairs in textbooks? I know it’s politically correct and all, but I counted 6 kids in wheelchairs in a textbook with 37 kids pictured. That’s like … a lot%!!!! In a school of our size (1100 kids), that would mean 178.4 kids in chairs. Come on now; let’s be a little more representative of the true population, people. And who wants to see 2/5 of a kid rolling around the halls? Not me. (I’ll explain the math later – shoot me an email and I’ll lay it out in color blocks for ya)

My friend B and I were talking about the childhood truths that come out in blogging, and then she shared that she used to make her boy doll and her girl doll hump. That would be OK I guess, if they weren’t Donny and Marie. Even though you know those two totally rode the pony. At least once.

I don’t really like the Beatles. I never have liked them. I know -- horrible. I have never admitted it before. Now please just punch my ticket so that I can go directly to hell.

My dad is so funny. And so very silly. He never says "bird". He always says "boid". He even went so far as to re-label the buckets of sunflower seeds for the birdfeeder. See? He also says, "when did you first loin of pork?" every time we eat pork loin. I scream every time, but I would miss it if he didn't say it, and wonder what was wrong.

On second thought ... there is no hell. Except the one we make for ourselves. Ditto heaven. This is what I think. Won’t I be surprised when I find out I was so so so wrong.

I think the line “driving the skin bus to tuna town” is one of the funniest euphemisms for sex that I have heard. Likewise, “laying cable” for pooping. Think you can do better?

I made up new words to the Nelly Furtado song “I’m Like a Bird”, and it went like this: “I’m like a turd, I’ll only float away-ayyyy … I don’t know where my home is … I don’t know where my bowl is …” I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

It may seem from this post that I love toilet humor, but generally I think that it is juvenile and I act very holier-than-thou when people break out their poop jokes in front of me.

Oh, and WTF?!?!? This just makes me angry. Ignorant assholes.

I decided it's childish and teen-like to have a crush on Johnny (that'll be Mr. Depp to you) so I have matured. It's all about Matthew MacFadyen now.
Is it me, or does Paula Abdul clap her hands like a goddam seal? I think she is a seal; I found photo evidence. [ps, It's sea lions that clap. not seals, but the word seal is just much funnier]

I sing in the car, but never the melody. I harmonize with every song that comes on. Such is the plight of the alto.

Every week I think, Oh …. I hope I make it to Friday. If I can just make it to 3 pm, I will be fine. Why do I think I won’t make it? Just what do I think is going to happen? I don’t know. I just need to hang in there, is all. Just keep hangin’ in there.

Pomegranate Repost

I'm sort of busy, so I'm reposting this longie but goodie, one of my meditations of yore. You might want to go away & return to read it in bits, but make sure you do come back for all of it. It will change your life.

I love eating pomegranates. I love how the fruity little regiments are all lined up, these little podlings of bursting juice and one hard little seed, waiting for me to pluck them from their nests and explode their flavor onto my tongue. It's meditative, in a way: Pluck, pop. Pluck, pop. Pluck, pop. Meditative ... … Meditative ...

Shopping at Macy's last Sunday was a head trip. They are playing Christmas Music. Christmas music!!!! On November 6th! Apparently, according to their customer service, by "customer request" they start the music the same time they start their holiday displays, which is now. Apparently the customers didn't realize the start date would be just after Halloween. Hearing "Chestnuts Roasted on an Open Spit" or whatever, as sung tremulously and nauseatingly by Aaron Neville, over the high-volume / low fidelity dressing room speaker, was just as bit much for me; I was already aggravated with trying to stuff my 42 D's into a 40 C.

Also in Macy's lingerie department, there was a man. A creepy man. An oldish man, maybe 60, with slicked-back hair and a loosely fitting suit. Shiny shoes. Looked like a smoker. This man was fingering the panties. Yes, he was petting them and draping them across his hand in a very unsettling way. Unsettling to watch, that is. I was picturing him whispering, in his mind, yessss ...…oh yessss my pretty things ... this is where her kitty goes, right here ... where my hand is ... my hand is touching the lace that will be where her kitty is ... Ew. Later he would be pulling out these mental images and repeating these phrases as muffled shouts into his pillow. Then again, maybe he was just shopping for his girlfriend. Or niece. Or something. What do I know? I don't know from perverts.

I used to work with Miss Diane the mirror lady. From Romper Room. Yes, it's true. She is now a teacher aide in a Connecticut school district. She gave me this postcard to remember her by. She is nice, a little bit wacky; she wears flip flops every day because (according to her) her feet get hot from all the hot peppers she consumes. She doesn't say "I see Billy, I see Bobby, I see Molly, I see Sally" to the kids. I know you were wondering that.

When I was in 6th grade, I was running down the hall with clogs and I sprained my ankle. The janitor found me on the floor and carried me to the nurse's office. I felt a little embarrassed about that, especially when I (we) passed some other kids; they weren't my friends, so it wasn't too bad. Actually, did I have friends in 6th grade? I don't remember any. I was sort of weird. In 6th grade I hated this kid Julian who had a mop of curly hair and who always had some sort of crust around his nose. That's all I remember from 6th grade, besides simple machines. Oh, and Mr. Shaw, my social studies teacher. He looked like the Heat Miser, but he was really nice. I did steal his eraser, though. He had a really slippery, white eraser, which was resting on his desk and just calling out to me. I took it. I still have it. Sometimes I cuddle it at night and just cry and cry.

In 7th grade I wore a pink velour v-neck sweater with a white dickie under it to school. I loved the dickie; all the warmth and comfort of a turtleneck, but without all those annoying sleeves and a shirt bottom to tuck! I didn't change for gym that day for some reason (now they call it PE, but it's gym, dammit!); I just took the dickie off. The v-neck was horribly low cut, and during kickball it slid really low and when I bent over I could sometimes look down and see my own little budding breasts peeking out. I hoped no one else could; I just pulled it back up and kept running, my little pointies just bouncing up & down behind the velour. When I went back into the locker room, some 8th grade girls were there and one of them said, "why don't you wear a bra, you slut?" I didn't know what a slut was, but it didn't sound good so that weekend I asked my mom for a bra. She took me shopping and we got a training bra (that's a little bra with 2 wheels on each side, so you can train yourself to lie on your stomach and slide, which you'll be doing a lot of in just a few short years!). The first time I wore it was at my cousin's ice skating recital, and my aunt (who was sitting behind me) snapped the back of it. That was a high point in my puberty.

Hmmm, I'm just noticing that this post has a definite, albeit weak, erotic thread to it. But not normal erotic, more like back-pages-of-the-Advocate-type-stuff. I don't read those, but I have heard rumors (sexy couple seeks bedroom third; he sucks your nose while she watches! Please be disease and drug free!) Trust me, I don't know from pervs; I'm just telling my story. By the way, does Astroglide wash out of taffeta? Just asking. No reason.

I think I missed out on a drama career. I was a star in my third grade production of The Mikado (I was one of the 3 Little Maids From School). Martin S. was the lead. He was The Mikado, and he was a fourth grader! A man!!! You can see how much I love him in the photo above.


I haven't baked an apple pie in several years. In fact, I think the one I dropped on the floor was the last one I baked. We still ate it; the parts that weren't actually sitting on linoleum. It was a bittersweet time, filled with deliciousness and self-loathing, all packaged into one psycholgoically f***ed up bundle. Time to heal and bake another one. My favorite pie is -- of course -- pumpkin.

When I was a lifeguard, a little boy came up to my chair requesting some First Aid care. He had a swollen lip. I asked him what had happened; had he scraped his lip on the bottom? Hit it on the edge? No, he told me. He and a friend were playing in the creek, and one of them caught a baby snapping turtle. The friend told Boy that the turtle smelled, so Boy bent down to smell it and the turtle bit him. I guess it held on for a while, because there was a nasty welt.

Lifeguarding was such a great job. The best days were rainy days, when nobody was at the town pool (a manmade lake, really). We would float around on kickboards and search for money on the bottom of the pool. There was a lot of it, because of all of the people who swam with cutoff shorts. We would take all the money we found and order pizza for the lifeguards. We didn't spend the turds we found, we just left them to roll around on the bottom. Domino's doesn't accept turds as currency.

All of the young girl lifeguards were subjected to a ritual known as shake-n-bake by the older (college-age) lifeguard boys. Two or more boys would grab a girl, dip her in the water, then carry her up to the sand and dip / roll her until she was covered. Ahhh, good times. I loved being an object. I wish somebody would objectify me now; life is easier when you are a piece of flesh and not an intellectual, professional woman.

That's why I liked Little House on the Prairie so much. Boy, those women had it easy. All they did was sit on their asses and sew quilts all day. At night Pa would come home with a bear leg or a rabbit and they'd all sit down to eat it in the near-dark cabin. So cozy, so simple. Oh sure, sometimes they had Scarlet Fever or Malaria and one or the other of them died or went blind, but they were living it up on the frontier!!!!

So, I've plucked all the seeds from this pomegranate. My belly is full and my mind is emptied for now. These meditations are really helping me to get in touch with the Great Unknown, I think. The Dalai Lama would be so proud of me. Don't you agree?

Repost: Meditations on a Sunlit Window

Certain things are just routines, and by routines I of course mean obsessive-compulsive. For example, whenever I open the coffee beans, I always have to stick my nose in there and inhale. If I don’t do it, I feel cheated somehow. I know what coffee smells like! Yet I must stick my nose in the bean can and take a deep whiff. Maybe it’s not OCD, maybe it’s just the simple joys of life.

Other routines:

• Kicking my underwear into the air with the remaining foot and catching it, whenever I take my underwear off.
• Smelling every bottle of shampoo that I think about purchasing
• Smelling the first warm towel that comes out of the dryer or the first crisp sheet off the line.
• Am I obsessed with smells? Maybe.
• When I tear something up (like a document, since I don’t have a shredder at work) (I do at home), I tear it vertically, and inside my head (or aloud, if my friend who hates this is nearby) I say: Vertical tears destroy information!
  
  

25 years ago they spoke out and they broke out of recession and oppression and together they toked, and they folked out with guitars around the bonfire just singing and clapping – Man, what the hell happened?

Oh, and put away the crack, before the crack puts you away.

When I walk down the hall at school, I sometimes become aware of my ass. Have you ever become aware of your own ass? I just feel my cheeks doing this little semi-circular kneading motion as I walk briskly to my next class. Inside my head I am thinking, Donk! Gadonk! Gadonk! Gadonk! And I wonder whether everyone else thinks it too.

Have you ever become aware of your own tongue? Try it next time you are talking. It feels like a giant slimy slug, just flopping around in your mouth. It’s creepy.

Speaking of asses, the other day I had a huge wedgie as I was carrying things to my classroom, and I didn’t have the hands to pull it outta there, nor did I want to do that in front of a hallway full of 8th graders. So I just left it, hoping the black pants didn’t make it as obvious.

I never wear tan pants anymore. Ever since I learned about camel toes, and saw a colleague with tan pant camel toes, I never wanted to be that person. Not that it happens often, but it could! And I don’t want to be remembered as the teacher who had camel-colored camel toes.

When people don’t follow right-of-way protocol, it pisses me off. The other day the driver of an oncoming car stopped to let me make a left turn in front of him, even though he clearly had the right of way. There were no cars behind him; I could have waited. I didn’t take it as courtesy, I took it as idiocy. I didn’t quite flip him off, but I did make the exasperated what the hell? hand movement. You know the one; it looks like you are really quickly spreading your fingers to shove them into the fingers of a glove. Then I waved -- thank you, idiot!

When I saw that TV evangelist get punched in the face, I felt vindicated, somehow.

When I was little, I had a fantasy of having a giant male lion as a pet. I would walk him on the streets and everyone would be in awe. Years later I saw a tiger in the back of a pickup truck in Toronto, and realized that big cats weren’t meant to be kept as pets. I guess I would have to mesmerize people on my own.

I can’t believe all the pretentious assholes in line in front of me at Starbucks. With their talls and their half soys and their double shot skims and their no whips. I just want to get my venti vanilla extra chai extra hot chai latte and be on my way, dammit!

Last week at Starbucks I dropped my wallet and a guy just stood there and watched me pick up all my change. He didn’t even pretend to make a move to help me. I found it profoundly depressing.

But then, on my way out of the post office, a 9-year-old boy ran to open the door for me, and I decided there was hope after all.

If you enjoyed these meditations, you may go back for seconds or even thirds.

Meditation on a venti no-water extra-hot two percent vanilla chai latte.

How so very decadent I feel on my sick day, lounging in bed until ten and then buying not one, but two chai lattes, they soothe my throat you know, and solid food is making me gag. and I need some calories from somewhere. Reading the Science Times from cover to cover, feeling overwhelmed that I can never, will never, teach these kids all there is to know. I don’t even know it all. They’ve got to learn some of it on their own. How cute they all look, on the days I hand out the Science Times to them all, and they spend the class period poring over it.

A chance to do errands … the dry cleaner gave me a sour look when I handed her the bag of hangers to re-use; so what if they have the competitor’s logo on them? Sorry about the one wrapped in yarn, I don’t know where that came from. Oh, and the bent-to-hell one.

And why do I find my trip to Bed bath & Beyond so very depressing? What with the fluorescent lighting and the doors that open by themselves and all the brightly lit aisles with the busy commerce of toiletries and cheap drapes, and the music that changes from section to section; Christmas carols in the premature holiday area. Happy fucking Kwanzaa, and all the other made-up holidays!!! And the music in the Beyond section is so very soothing, with its subtle sound of dripping water that makes me have to urinate. And the bright yellow “Clearance! As is!” signs. And the would-be-pretty lady with the unfortunate giant brown birthmark on her cheek. Everyone’s just doing the best they can, doing their errands, but even with all this brightly-lit plastic wonderfulness, why are so many people so sad?

There’s too much commerce. I just want to chop wood and kill and cook my own deer. I want to see a fucking bear or a cougar one of these days.

I miss prairie days.

Just playing Chasing Cars over and over again, wondering when I'll get sick of it. It grows on me, even though it contains about 4 different notes.

There’s that high school boy who gets out of school at 1:47 and pedals furiously on his too-small bike, knees pumping somewhere up around his shoulders, his jeans so low & long they catch in the chain almost, pedaling pedaling to his oh so sad job at the 1-800-MATTRES (leave off one S ... for savings! Christ almighty.) store. So he can pay for his pimped-out Honda Civic hatchback with the chrome spinners, and maybe make manager after he graduates a year and a half later than he was supposed to.

And that lady walking her poodle; she's quite elderly, taking her time while Fifi tugs at her skinny little leash-on-a-spool. The little old lady, walking slowly, carrying her plastic grocery bag of shit. No city ordinances broken here, no way.

And does anyone else think it’s wrong that the two McDonald's flags fly higher than Old Glory? The two flags that are unnecessary, as the larger-than-any-other-flag Golden Arches already dominate the other two flags below? Oops, that one didn't manage to make it into the photo. My camera-phone. Which is sad in its own way. Do we live in the United fucking McDonald's of America?!?

Just doing the best I can, here.

I have to remember that my family and my friends are there, all of us just clinging to each other and trying to live our best lives, how much I actually love raking my acorns into piles, and talking to my students, and trying to remind them that there is life outside their electronics and MySpace.

If I lay here ... if I just lie here, will you lie with me and just forget the world?

The foam from the chai on my lip makes me happy.

These little happinesses just have to add up and tip the scales away from the depressing parts, or we’re all doomed.

So I’ll focus on the little happinesses.

...like neighbors who offer a hand.

Christmas.

Nutmeg.

The smell of burning leaves, and church bells, and the high note in that beautiful song I just learned, and the fellowship of other people who are struggling along as I am.

Done with the chai, throat still hurts.

Time for a refill.

Repost: Meditation a la Mode (originally posted 10/12/05)

It's so much fun going back & reading my old stuff that I thought you might like it, too. Also, I have a cold.

I am just sitting here, eating some ice cream and thinking deep thoughts. To wit:

• A very small spider has taken up residence in the corner of my office. It is a S.A.S. (spider of acceptable size), so I will leave it alone. I hope it doesn’t decide to walk across my lips in the night.
  
• When my twin sister and I were 5, we went to a birthday party that included a trip to the movies to see “Snoopy Come Home”. There’s a part where the Peanuts kids are singing, “Snooooopy, Snoooooopy, oh won’t you come home, come home, come home?” It is so sad. It tears you up inside. We started to bawl; we were inconsolable. Our mother had to come get us.
  
• We were always that way, getting each other worked up. We’d lie awake at night in our shared bedroom saying things to each other like, “wait … what if mom and dad …die?!?!?! Waaaah!” and then we’d barge in on my parents for comfort after working each other up into a red-alert fit.
  
• The Honda Element is butt ugly. I actually threw up a little in my mouth when one passed me today.
  
• When I was six, I threw a giant rock into Lake Huron. Well, I threw it towards Lake Huron. At the precise moment it reached her area, my younger sister stood up and the rock ended its trajectory on the back of her 2-year-old skull. Twin sister & I stifled her screams because we didn’t want to get in trouble. Don’t worry, she was fine and later we told our mother (when we were 17).
  
• I just can’t wear a do-rag the way I did back then, young & carefree in Key West.

• I really, really miss Jim Henson. Viscerally. Deep in my belly. I love The Dark Crystal! I love when Kira is calling for those stilt-walker things and she yells, “kama leyaaaa!” I love when Aughra sniffs Jem and says, “Looks like a gelfling. Smells like a gelfling. Maybe you are a gelfling!!” I love the whole surreal, slow, mystical quality of it.
  

And did anyone else have a pleasant, albeit disturbing, semi-erotic response to the dog-dragon thing in Never-Ending Story? He’s this giant, strong, undulating, furry beast. How could I not feel a tingle?

• Somebody I know, after reading my comment about waking up in the dead of night with fears, shared the following: For years I used to wake up and check to make sure my breasts and vagina were still there. I had heard that people changed gender, and I thought it happened spontaneously. Just wanted to make sure everything was intact (She finally stopped a few years ago, when she turned 45).

I think I might have actually failed Organic Chemistry II, but the professor gave me a mercy D- because I used to go to his office hours every single day. For extra help, you sickies!

I got a 7% on my Calculus IV final exam. That's zero-seven. I was done in 23 minutes & spent the next hour and a half drawing bunnies all over my test. I was on Dean’s List every semester except the one after that calculus class (and organic); that semester I was on Academic Probation.

I did an independent study in Chemistry that consisted mostly of going out to lunch for Rocks & Wings with my professor. And trying to fix the mass spectrophotometer, which we never managed to do. And learning to shoot a revolver (picture later—in I Might be White Trash VI).

I saw somebody I knew at the grocery store today and I ran & hid behind the organic dairy display until she passed. I just wasn’t in the mood.

There’s a mentally challenged man who works in the cafeteria at my work, and every time he sees me he asks me the same exact question. I don’t know whether to be annoyed or compassionate. Aren’t I allowed to be annoyed by people, even though they are retarded? Dude, I answered you the first 54 times!!! I hate that I feel guilty for thinking “please shut up” every day, in my mind, at him.

I don’t really like Halloween that much. I plan to go out & leave my house dark. Yeah, it’ll be an egg magnet, but at least I won’t have to rummage through my pantry & give the kids canned goods when I run out of candy, like I did last year.

Meditation: Errand Thoughts

It’s been pretty hard to meditate lately; my meditative moments come mostly in the form of loose thoughts on my drives in the car, to-from the realtor, lawyer, and mortgage office. Even so, I’ve been blessed with a few bursts of divine wisdom and self-knowledge, which I will now share with you. A confessional of sorts.

I have finally discovered the secret to dropping a few pounds. I’m hesitant to share it with you, because I am going to see if I can get a patent on it, and I don’t want you to steal my idea. But I feel that I can trust you, so I will tell you what I have discovered. The secret to losing weight is to ... EAT LESS FOOD. I know, mind-blowing, isn’t it? I’m surprised no one thought of it sooner.

Speaking of weight, I have a thing about carrying things. I have to carry everything all at once. A shopping-cartload of groceries gets carried into the house in one huge trip. I balance both sides, hanging bags upon bags off of each hand and wrist, then start walking. I crash into the rhododendron bush and the doorknob on the way. No matter, I am getting it all in one trip. People who ask if I need help are shunned with the magical phrase, “no thanks – I’m all balanced." I am delighted to see that my little 2.5-year-old niece has acquired the same gene, as she carries all of her toys from place to place. Only lesser people make multiple trips.

Lesser people also aren’t that efficient about laundry as I am. It is perfectly OK to wear the black tank top you slept in to work, as long as it is under another shirt.

I’m starting to worry that between that last comment, the DHF and DH discussion from the other day, and some other comments I have made, you people are starting to think I am gross. I’m really not, am I? I just dare to say the things that other people do, but don’t say. How many of you have sniffed a shirt you found on the floor to see if it is clean enough to wear? Huh? How about underwear? Yeah, you guys are gross. I am so much better than that. I would never sniff my own dirty laundry. Only other people’s, when I house-sit.

It’s like looking through other people’s medicine cabinets. Everyone acts all indignant and horrified at the prospect. I defy you to name one person who has never done that. How do you think I keep my Vicodin prescription up-to-date now that my name is on that statewide list the doctors all get? Yep, you betcha.

But I jest. Or do I?

Speaking of addictions, what about pasta? Yum. This past winter my comfort food of choice was the Boston Market Macaroni & Cheese. Nuke it, douse it in Tabasco sauce, and down the hatch. See paragraph 2 for how that worked out for me. But I must tell you that I think cooking pasta “al dente” is a bunch of bullshit made up by pretentious assholes at Conde Nast who just want you to think that you are an uncultured loser if you like your noodles soft. Al dente = chewy and strange. Cook the crap out of it, I say.

I’ve really been missing updating my iTunes since my stuff’s been living on the palette in White Plains; I keep listening to the same playlists over & over. That’s fine; three more weeks of the Dixie Chicks can’t be that bad for me. I have come to the conclusion --- or actually, finally developed the bravery to say --- I don’t like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, or Elvis (sorry BG). I’m really sorry. Will I go to hell for this?

Probably not; not to mention, I already have my ticket from all the times I got in people’s beds when I was babysitting their kids.

Meditations on a Snowy Step

I don't think enough of you read this yet, so I'll just put it back at the top and pretend it's new. The 2 of you who did read it (did you click all the links?), please go to July 1 in my archives and you can see all my old HNT's in a lineup. The rest of you can do that too, if you want. Then go read Meditiations Split Pea and Pomegranate, they're my faves. I'll expect a full report in my comments. Thank you! My Daddy says I'm bad.

Shovel, shovel, shovel.

Think, think, think.

While I drive, I hold entire conversations inside my head; who doesn’t, right? But for some reason, when I get to the part where I say, no!, I say it out loud. And with much more attitude than I would ever use in real life. It’s like a Nnnyeawwwww, with an implied and f### you! behind it. I’m just practicing for the day I might actually need to say it just like that. Strangely, I never need to practice my yes.

This guy is a Buddhist priest who teaches in a local school. I was introduced to him by a mutual friend upon a chance meeting at Office Max . He was introduced to me by his real name, which is Todd. I didn’t know anything about him. When he shook my hand, he said, “Please … call me Wisdom.” Without missing a beat, I said, “And please ... call me Beauty.”

When I comb my wet hair and I have a tangle, I pull really hard until the tangle tears out in a giant clump. For some reason, I derive enormous satisfaction from this. It makes me feel alive. Yes! I have torn out a gigantic chunk of my own hair! Now bow and pay homage unto me! Then I go to the store and buy some detangler.

I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but until I was 9 I never realized that my head had a back to it. There was my twin sister, always brushing her hair, and then me, with the front nice and brushed and the back one gigantic sleeptangle. I also didn’t wear a shirt until I was 12, but that is another story.

I derive the greatest enjoyment in life from being completely, utterly, nakedly, rawly honest. These scarce moments of utter clarity, best when shared with another human being, are moments of pure beauty and utter humanity. I am saddest when I have shared that with someone and then it is lost because we have both put up our defenses. But I also recognize that it is necessary for daily functioning, and that only the very insane and the very young live like that all the time. I wonder if there is a way I could be like that all the time and not have people think I am insane. Maybe when I am 90.

When did we start thinking that buying bottled water was OK? I remember when it first started, I was like, yeah right. As if! Now it seems commonplace. Kind of like cell phones; remember how weird it looked when someone was talking on a phone in the car? Wow! Now every middle-schooler I see in front of my school is on the cell phone, probably calling their au pair to make sure they have a ride to Abercrombie.

The absolute best water I have ever tasted comes out of a well on my grandparents’ farm; it’s chock-full of lime and clogs the pipes something terrible, but boy is it delish!

I remember precisely two things about third grade recess. One of them is climbing the pole on the jungle gym over and over. Not because I liked getting to the top that much, but because I got a special feeling in my tummy after I did it. Boy, did I like climbing! The other was chasing Clement all over the playground and, when I caught him, straddling him and pinning him to the ground. Boy, did I like pinning him down! I figured out much later that the two activities were closely related.

In 1979 my sisters and I had a fantasy of building an elaborate system of snowtunnels, all interconnected, with various openings at critical points in the lawn. We got as far as digging a 3’ deep hole and then gave up in a sweaty heap, and started making snow angels instead. Wow … when I think about that now, I can’t believe we had even that much energy. It just sounds like work.

Kind of like shoveling. Was it always this hard?!?!?

Pomegranate Meditations

I love eating pomegranates. I love how the fruity little regiments are all lined up, these little podlings of bursting juice and one hard little seed, waiting for me to pluck them from their nests and explode their flavor onto my tongue. It's meditative, in a way: Pluck, pop. Pluck, pop. Pluck, pop. Meditative ... … Meditative ...

Shopping at Macy's last Sunday was a head trip. They are playing Christmas Music. Christmas music!!!! On November 6th! Apparently, according to their customer service, by "customer request" they start the music the same time they start their holiday displays, which is now. Apparently the customers didn't realize the start date would be just after Halloween. Hearing "Chestnuts Roasted on an Open Spit" or whatever, as sung tremulously and nauseatingly by Aaron Neville, over the high-volume / low fidelity dressing room speaker, was just as bit much for me; I was already aggravated with trying to stuff my 42 D's into a 40 C.

Also in Macy's lingerie department, there was a man. A creepy man. An oldish man, maybe 60, with slicked-back hair and a loosely fitting suit. Shiny shoes. Looked like a smoker. This man was fingering the panties. Yes, he was petting them and draping them across his hand in a very unsettling way. Unsettling to watch, that is. I was picturing him whispering, in his mind, yessss ...…oh yessss my pretty things ... this is where her kitty goes, right here ... where my hand is ... my hand is touching the lace that will be where her kitty is ... Ew. Later he would be pulling out these mental images and repeating these phrases as muffled shouts into his pillow. Then again, maybe he was just shopping for his girlfriend. Or niece. Or something. What do I know? I don't know from perverts.

I used to work with Miss Diane the mirror lady. From Romper Room. Yes, it's true. She is now a teacher aide in a Connecticut school district. She gave me this postcard to remember her by. She is nice, a little bit wacky; she wears flip flops every day because (according to her) her feet get hot from all the hot peppers she consumes. She doesn't say "I see Billy, I see Bobby, I see Molly, I see Sally" to the kids. I know you were wondering that.

When I was in 6th grade, I was running down the hall with clogs and I sprained my ankle. The janitor found me on the floor and carried me to the nurse's office. I felt a little embarrassed about that, especially when I (we) passed some other kids; they weren't my friends, so it wasn't too bad. Actually, did I have friends in 6th grade? I don't remember any. I was sort of weird. In 6th grade I hated this kid Julian who had a mop of curly hair and who always had some sort of crust around his nose. That's all I remember from 6th grade, besides simple machines. Oh, and Mr. Shaw, my social studies teacher. He looked like the Heat Miser, but he was really nice. I did steal his eraser, though. He had a really slippery, white eraser, which was resting on his desk and just calling out to me. I took it. I still have it. Sometimes I cuddle it at night and just cry and cry.

In 7th grade I wore a pink velour v-neck sweater with a white dickie under it to school. I loved the dickie; all the warmth and comfort of a turtleneck, but without all those annoying sleeves and a shirt bottom to tuck! I didn't change for gym that day for some reason (now they call it PE, but it's gym, dammit!); I just took the dickie off. The v-neck was horribly low cut, and during kickball it slid really low and when I bent over I could sometimes look down and see my own little budding breasts peeking out. I hoped no one else could; I just pulled it back up and kept running, my little pointies just bouncing up & down behind the velour. When I went back into the locker room, some 8th grade girls were there and one of them said, "why don't you wear a bra, you slut?" I didn't know what a slut was, but it didn't sound good so that weekend I asked my mom for a bra. She took me shopping and we got a training bra (that's a little bra with 2 wheels on each side, so you can train yourself to lie on your stomach and slide, which you'll be doing a lot of in just a few short years!). The first time I wore it was at my cousin's ice skating recital, and my aunt (who was sitting behind me) snapped the back of it. That was a high point in my puberty.

Hmmm, I'm just noticing that this post has a definite, albeit weak, erotic thread to it. But not normal erotic, more like back-pages-of-the-Advocate-type-stuff. I don't read those, but I have heard rumors (sexy couple seeks bedroom third; he sucks your nose while she watches! Please be disease and drug free!) Trust me, I don't know from pervs; I'm just telling my story. By the way, does Astroglide wash out of taffeta? Just asking. No reason.

I think I missed out on a drama career. I was a star in my third grade production of The Mikado (I was one of the 3 Little Maids From School). Martin S. was the lead. He was The Mikado, and he was a fourth grader! A man!!! You can see how much I love him in the photo above.


I haven't baked an apple pie in several years. In fact, I think the one I dropped on the floor was the last one I baked. We still ate it; the parts that weren't actually sitting on linoleum. It was a bittersweet time, filled with deliciousness and self-loathing, all packaged into one psycholgoically f***ed up bundle. Time to heal and bake another one. My favorite pie is -- of course -- pumpkin.

When I was a lifeguard, a little boy came up to my chair requesting some First Aid care. He had a swollen lip. I asked him what had happened; had he scraped his lip on the bottom? Hit it on the edge? No, he told me. He and a friend were playing in the creek, and one of them caught a baby snapping turtle. The friend told Boy that the turtle smelled, so Boy bent down to smell it and the turtle bit him. I guess it held on for a while, because there was a nasty welt.

Lifeguarding was such a great job. The best days were rainy days, when nobody was at the town pool (a manmade lake, really). We would float around on kickboards and search for money on the bottom of the pool. There was a lot of it, because of all of the people who swam with cutoff shorts. We would take all the money we found and order pizza for the lifeguards. We didn't spend the turds we found, we just left them to roll around on the bottom. Domino's doesn't accept turds as currency.

All of the young girl lifeguards were subjected to a ritual known as shake-n-bake by the older (college-age) lifeguard boys. Two or more boys would grab a girl, dip her in the water, then carry her up to the sand and dip / roll her until she was covered. Ahhh, good times. I loved being an object. I wish somebody would objectify me now; life is easier when you are a piece of flesh and not an intellectual, professional woman.

That's why I liked Little House on the Prairie so much. Boy, those women had it easy. All they did was sit on their asses and sew quilts all day. At night Pa would come home with a bear leg or a rabbit and they'd all sit down to eat it in the near-dark cabin. So cozy, so simple. Oh sure, sometimes they had Scarlet Fever or Malaria and one or the other of them died or went blind, but they were living it up on the frontier!!!!

So, I've plucked all the seeds from this pomegranate. My belly is full and my mind is emptied for now. These meditations are really helping me to get in touch with the Great Unknown, I think. The Dalai Lama would be so proud of me. Don't you agree?

Split Pea Meditations

Yesterday, I made split pea soup. While I was waiting for it to be done, I thought I would try to meditate. I still haven’t gotten that whole “clearing the mind” thing down yet. Intrusive thoughts are keeping me from reaching a state of bliss, goddam it!

When I eat salty food, I have a coughing fit. I have always done so, ever since babyhood. People try to pat me on the back, and I have to tell them no, it’s just the salt. You should hear me eat Tostitos. I hack & wheeze the whole time. But I put salt on everything, because I love it. Now it’s so bad, even the thought of salt makes me cough. I’m coughing as I write this! I am a freak.

Friday at Starbucks I was given a Canadian nickel for change. I gave it back to the barista and asked for a US nickel (nothing against you northerners, I just like my change to work in the soda machine, OK?). She took the Canadian nickel and threw it in the trash can. I stared at her, open-mouthed. She just stared back. The other barista was having a hissy fit over it, and yelling at her. I just stared, and then said, “I’ve never seen anybody do anything like that before.” You’d think with such an important-sounding job, she’d be a little smarter.

As we walked on the streets in Boston, one of my students* poked me in the arm to get my attention. I said, “I see your arm poke, and raise you two jabs to the neck.” Joking back, he said, “I see your two jabs, and raise you an Indian twist.” This went back and forth a few times, until he said, “I see your thumb-wrestle, and raise you one hearty spanking!” Wow. Boy, did that conversation came to a screeching halt.

*This is the same young lad who had the beer-opener sandals; who said, in class, "it puts the lotion in the basket!**"; and who, last week, sang Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (which, if I am not mistaken, is about sixty-nine) until I stopped him. So he is quite a character. Actually, he is me, only 14 and male.

**Click here for danceable version of "It Rubs the Lotion on its Skin"

One day on my drive I noticed a Quiznos, a Subway, and a Blimpie all within one quarter mile. What does that say about us?

Now I want a BLT. Soooooo badly, but noooo, I have to eat f***ing soup. Oh yeah, I made it. Mmmmm, yummy soup.

When I was in fourth grade, my mom and dad got called into school for a conference. It seems that I wasn’t taking school seriously enough. The proof? My friend Amy (not Amy Campbell. F*** you, Amy Campbell!) & I were writing “silly sentences” for our vocabulary. For example, “It is raining noses.” With accompanying picture of rain cloud, umbrella, and hundreds of noses falling from the sky. I think I was just on my way to being a creative writer. My parents laughed the whole way home.

Speaking of childhood, one of my mom’s favorite time-out spots for me & my twin sister was at the bottom of the basement stairs (one in each corner). We (well, I) discovered that if I clacked my teeth together it would resonate through the stairwell and make a really cool boooiiinnnng, boinnnng sound. I convinced my sister to join me, and we boiiiinnng boinnnnged until my mom came down and spanked our asses. It was still really cool, I think.

I don’t feel like doing any work, ever again. All I wanna do is zooma zoom zoom zoom and a boom boom. Is that so wrong?

Pad Thai Meditations

In one hour I’m going to be eating some of the best Thai food on the planet.

I have an hour to kill. What surfaces?

I can’t believe I killed my Tamagotchi. After all these years, it died in a heap of its own filth as I neglected it with my new blogging habit.

The Venezuelan Handyman is back, fixing my tub. The last time I saw him was on Christmas morning, when he left for Maracaibo after a month of living downstairs and fixing every single thing in my house, including me. Now he’s just a dirty guy scraping grout. I feel nothing. How does that happen? He does have nice hands, I’ll give him that.

I miss the old Sesame Street. I particularly miss that skit with the hairy hippie guy singing, “monad-a nah, na bee dee bee dee” and then the two hippie chicks chiming in. Then he breaks it down with this funky-ass stuff, going “monad-u-nuh-na na, buhnana, buhnana, muh nuh na na na…” The two hippie chicks stare at him like he has lost it. Now that was good television.

Every day, my neighbor’s mop dog gets loose from its leash, and every day I return said mop dog. My neighbor opens the door a crack, puts down her scotch, and takes the dog, then asks me if I want to have tea on the porch sometime. I always say, “maybe someday.”

I was so upset when John Denver died. I wasn’t born in the summer of my 27th year as his song made me hope, and I hoped he might tell me when that would happen for me.

I could use a pedicure. Either that, or maybe just take a belt sander to this callus on my heel.

All the women in my family go barefoot most of the time. We are farmish folk.

I will never bungee jump.

I will never skydive.

I have climbed a 50’tree wearing only lobster claws, and belayed about 500 kids through a high ropes course.

I wish I had gone to Paul Simon’s concert in Central Park in 1991. That album rocks.

Was I the only one who suspected the Brady kids got it on after hours? They weren’t actually related, after all.

If I forget whether I took my meds or not, I don’t know whether it’s worse to skip the day or take another one. I suppose I should ask somebody that, someday.

What is a cloudberry? I have a jar of jam made from them.

I can’t believe random people in cars have the capacity to hurt my feelings. Today, I got the “Go ahead, go ahead, no you go, go already!” wave from somebody and I could tell from the tone of their fingers and wrist that the hand was pissed at me. It bothered me for a good long time.

It’s such a gorgeous day today. I can’t even conceive of how February will feel.

My feet look f-ing fabu in these shoes.

Train Meditations

I love riding the train to work. Time to think; time to meditate...

The woman next to me just answered her cell phone and then said, “Umm, I’m in North Carolina right now.”

I wonder just how big the number on that crumpled bill would have to be for me to jump down there and get it. Maybe $50?

I wonder when that Venezuelan Handyman is going to come back and fix my squeaky hinge ... and play my guitar again? He had really nice hands, and skin the color of a Brazil nut.

In 8th grade I went to a dance all dressed up in a frilly dress, and I asked Sean Herridy to dance. He laughed so hard he almost cried. I went in the bathroom and then I cried, because I really liked him. Fuck you, Sean Herridy!!!

Then I came out of the bathroom and saw Cathy Belmar dancing with a boy, and she was the biggest geek of all, so I went in the bathroom and cried some more. Fuck you, Cathy Belmar!

I used to cry to get attention in first grade gym class, when I didn’t feel like jumping rope. I liked how all the teachers gathered around and tried to figure out what was wrong. I couldn’t tell them, because there wasn’t anything. I just wanted them to huddle around me. This doesn’t work quite as well in grown-up life, I’ve discovered.

I used to cry a lot.

Now I almost never cry. I could use a good cry, sometimes.

Pass the Kleenex.

It’s amazing how ugly the hidden back rooms of America are. All the trash we hide from view.

My idea of a good day when I was 10 was getting to spend 3-4 solid hours practicing my high jump in my grandparents’ yard, then going for a swim in the pond or climbing an apple tree.

I ran around with no shirt on until I was 11 years old. Everybody thought I was a wild little boy. It didn’t help that I never brushed the back of my hair.

When I was 13, I moved into my twin sister’s closet. I didn’t want to sleep in my room alone in the new house (we had always shared a room) so I set up a bed on her closet floor. It wasn’t a walk-in; it was just a regular sliding-door closet. I had my clock radio (playing Sheena Easton) in there and everything. It was grand.
When I was on the train traveling from Florence to Milan, there was a girl sitting across from me who was sucking her thumb the entire time. She was at least 16. I had vivid fantasies of slapping her face.

Sometimes, after a long day, I go down to the creek and throw different foods to the fish. They like Cheerios®, but not Craisins®.

This place where I live is so beautiful; I never knew that until I had traveled a bit & seen other places.