early a.m. phone calls

are never, ever good.

This morning's ominous 6:00 a.m. ringing of the phone brought the shitty, awful news that my friend lost her baby last night. She was five months along, just learned last week that it was a girl. We were all so happy for her. My heart is breaking for my friend.

lame-asses, morons and mediocrity everywhere

I got an e-mail today from one of the many editors I work with in response to an e-mail I had sent to said editor about a story I was working on.

Two months ago.

What the fuck? And it was so lame and nit-witty: "My, where does the time go? So sorry it took me a while to get back with you..."

A while?

I considered printing it and hanging it up for all the world to see, but I refrained and instead forwarded it to one of my like-minded indignant comrades with the usual rant: "What the fuck? I wonder how much ______ makes to take month-long vacations more than once a year and fly to New York and all over hell's half acre only to end up writing what amounts to seven inches of copy once a month or so???? " The rest of the time said editor sits and stares at the PC or goes out to lunch for three hours. And it just makes none of the usual sense. Said editor is not young, hot, or well-connected and cannot possibly be screwing anyone let alone anyone who could insulate said ed. Maybe ed. is in the witness protection program. Or maybe the senior eds. have forgotten ed. is still on staff and never told payroll. It's insane. What's worse is that it is standard.

Another editor wanders in at 10 a.m., works until, oh, around noon, leaves to go running or cycling, comes back, eats lunch, showers and changes, maybe pops in to an editorial meeting then leaves at 3 p.m. to pick up the kids at school. Never comes back. Until the next day at 10 a.m.-ish. We figure said ed. puts in about 10 real hours per week. Just got promoted, by the way. There are also a bunch of writers in the "very special story of the year club." That means they write one a year. Maybe.

Again, I say, what the fuck?

My employer pays more people shit-loads of money to sit on their asses and do nothing while the lowly staffers and correspondents/freelancers do the bulk of the writing. That's if there is still room after they run all the wire stories no one cares about.

I guess I sound shrill and bitter now.

My friend just left me a mumbling whispered voicemail something to the effect that committing murder in the newsroom might be a fun afternoon activity. Glad I am out of the workplace more often than I am in.

What the fuck indeed.

scraped by again

holy shit are we lucky here on the west coast of the east coast.

The wind is whipping, the seabirds are MIA and the sky is pretty weird, but we're out of the bullseye, so no complaints.

God help the folks in the Big Easy.

Mother Nature sure can be a bitch on wheels.




Mad Beach, August 27, 2005

why i love italian boys

There just isn't anything else to say, is there?

Okay-"yummy."

You're welcome, Trevor.

the gray area

My family has a huge wall of framed family photographs. It started eons ago with my grandparents' parents and now every one of us has such a wall in our homes. It's a requirement. But the one at my mom and dad's is by far the flagship.

The photos are all black and white shots in differing hues of sepia and ashy gray. Some photos are less than a year old and the oldest one was snapped in 1917. It's odd to look at the images scattered all over the wall knowing that everyone there was once alive and walking around and I knew and loved each of them.

My favorite is the one of my grandfather's company bowling team--they worked for the Dolly Madison pickle company (later bought out by Smuckers) and the photo was taken in 1939. All the men are strapping peasant fellows with wide smiles and funny haircuts. My grandfather is handsome, his hair is thick and he is wearing a necktie and suspenders--they all are--his sleeves are rolled up over his strong forearms and he is holding his bowling ball out in front of him as if offering it to the photographer.

Another is a professional headshot of my dad in his military uniform. He is young and gazing brilliantly off into the horizon, airborne wings above the lieutenant bars on his hat, cavalry patches on his collar, silk camouflage neck scarf. It was the year he went to Vietnam for the first time. We call it "the Colonel Kurtz" and whisper "the horror" whenever he pauses to look at himself, circa 1967.

There are pictures of my brother and me at varying stages of our lives; he stands in front of the wall sometimes and shakes his head. He jokingly calls it "the hall of shame." Sometimes my dad stands in front of it, Yul Brenner-ala the King of Siam-like, feet spread apart, hands on hips and proclaims proudly to my mom: "We are responsible for all of this," gesturing to the kids and grandkids smiling down at him.

When I was younger, my image all framed and mounted on the wall annoyed me and caused me embarrassment. But now I see that I blend well with the rest of them, in this sea of DNA and memory and tangled family bonds. And I don't mind so much.

aw, shit

here we go again, we're in the "cone of death." Time to power down, go get some beer and ice for the cooler, gas up the cars and hunker down for the looooong weekend. Wish you were here.

the lamp

This little inebriate is my most treasured family heirloom.

If my house were on fire, this is the one item I would run back in to save. The little ceramic drunk hanging off the lamppost graced the bar in my beloved grandfather's basement in Ohio for many, many years, played witness to family history, survived many moves and is the keeper of the flame that is my childhood's memory.

Bars were a big deal in my family and my grandpa's was spectacular. It was the centerpiece of all extended family activity and as the oldest of five siblings, grandpa was the patriarch of our clan and he hosted all family get-togethers. He took his role very seriously.

The bar was long and wooden and could accommodate eight adults on the big old antique stools. It even had a round brass runner to rest your feet on and a spittoon which held 100s of matchbooks from every restaurant and bar in Ohio, New York and points in between.

The bar was well-stocked; three mirrored shelves were jammed with shot glasses and glass bottles of every shape and size, each filled with mysterious liquid in varying hues of amber. It had a sink and a massive, rounded refrigerator that was always loaded with beer for the adults and grape Nehi and cream soda for the kids.

Grandpa had a huge collection of painted bar glasses that had things like riverboat scenes on them, and politically incorrect themes like the little black Sambo glasses and naked lady glasses. He also had 100s of swizzle sticks that I now own. There are sticks with naked lady bottoms bent over the tops ("Bottoms Up!") and big fish, glass olives, swizzle sticks with little hotels on top of them, exotic birds, the names of cocktail lounges and long since bulldozed lakeside retaurants and bars from Michigan to Ohio. They sit in a glass on the window sill in my kitchen now.

In the summers, all the men in the family would get together and play endless rounds of horseshoes in grandpa's yard. They would smoke and tell dirty jokes and laugh and swear and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and bottled Miller High Life. My great uncle Bobby (grandpa's youngest brother) would always inadvertently hit one of his brothers with a horseshoe and there would be a lot of shouting and carrying on. He was a massive beefy man and he chewed cigars. He never lit them, just walked around all day with one clamped in his mouth. Uncle Bobby bore a startling resemblance to Babe Ruth and he had been a Golden Gloves boxing champion in the 1940s but his aim with a horsehoe was for shit.

All the women would wisely avoid the horsehoe games by gathering in the kitchen to cook and chat and swat the kids away.

My cousins and second cousins would all belly up to the bar, fighting each other over the bar stools. Grandpa would line up glass tumblers on the bar and shoot a little bit of seltzer water into each glass as we watched, riveted. Then he would drop colored tablets into each glass and ad more seltzer as we oohed and ahhed, watching the bubbling brew turn orange or purple or red. Those grape and orange fizzy sodas were the best I ever tasted.

At night we would run around catching fireflies while the adults lounged on redwood patio furniture in the cool evening air, the butts of their cigarettes glowing softly off and on like orange fireflies, dancing in the darkness as they talked and gestured.

After my grandparents moved to basementless-Florida in the 1970s, my Uncle Paul took most of the bar equipment and set up an equally impressive bar in his own basement where he held court for over 30 years. He sold his house and moved to Michigan five years ago and asked me to fly up and decide what I wanted from his house. He put everything I selected on a truck and had it shipped to my brother and me. I carried the lamp home on the plane.

The drunk is a sophisticated bit of 1940s engineering. One click turns his nose on. I don't turn it on often, because the red bulb is original to the lamp and I don't know how I would replace it, since a friend who is a theatrical lighting designer told me they don't make bulbs that size anymore. A second click turns the big "Bar" globe on. A third click lights both. Sometimes when I'm working late at night I turn the globe on and it's glow makes me happy.

Yesterday it rained and I stopped working early and took a nap. I dreamed that it was fall and we were all at Grandpa's house in Ohio and Uncle Bobby was getting the house ready for Halloween. He was taking all the light bulbs out of the lamps in Grandma's living room and replacing them with blacklights. I was playing hide and seek with my cousins and from my hiding place behind the sofa, I watched him snake his thick arm under a lamp shade and pull a light bulb out. He caught my eye and grinned, winked at me and held the lightbulb to his lips and whispered "Shhhhhh!!!" Then I woke up.

sand

I live near the beach so I have the obligatory bowls of seashells all over my house. And sand. I have sand in my house, in my car, in the corners of the bathtubs, in the bottom of the washing machine, under the couch cushions and in my bed.

I hear seagulls all day and the occasional deep echoing sound of freighter horns way out in the gulf of mexico and the dinging bell of the causeway drawbridge that warns it is opening or closing.

My favorite time to go to the beach is at sunset, preferably during the week--fewer people. In the summertime when I arrive to witness sunset, most of the fat tourists have dragged their little fat sunburned children and neon rafts and inner tubes off to be stuffed into rental cars and driven back to the Holiday Inn where they will shower and dress in tacky tropical wear they fancy makes them look Island-like. And they will then go stuff their faces at the Outback.

I have the beach mostly to myself at twilight, the gloaming, my favorite time of day when everything vibrates and glows and it's quiet but for the mesmerizing sound of the waves and the shrill squeaking of the seabirds. I wiggle my butt into the sand and make myself a bucket seat and scrunch my toes deep into the sand, past the light, white dry powder down into the dark, cold, wetness beneath. I watch the sun melt into the water and rhythmically sift with my toes. Usually I hum. Then I go home and fold laundry.

the boy on the bus

I drove across the bay to go see my sweet friend, Julian yesterday morning. He answered the door in house slippers and a Hawaiian caftan with a cigarette in his mouth and I knew the night before must have been rough. The final tip-off was the five-o'clock shadow on his head. He takes great pains to meticulously shave and shine up his beautiful, perfectly round bald black head and he looked like fuzzy shit.

"Baby, I have got a mother-fucker of a migraine, you want a beer?" he said, shuffling backwards and flinging his lighter onto the coffee table then flopping on the couch dramatically.

I scolded him for being all closed up in the dark house and smoking like a chimney and drinking beer at ten o'clock in the goddamn morning. Plus, he had a massive bunch of flowers for me to take to a fancy-schmancy event last night and the mixture of cigarette smoke and too many tropical flowers in a small space made me feel like barfing. So I had a beer too, bummed one of his Marlboro lights and curled up on the couch with him and listened to his tale of woe.

His lover, Stefan had just left to return to Amsterdam after a three week visit. Julian said it was a fucking miserable visit and he and Stefan are through.

"Do you know, I ccoked and cleaned and had that man here for three weeks and he never once took me out for dinner? He never opened his wallet for anything--not one time, then he had the audacity to bitch last night about all the money he spent coming over here when we were out having dinner with Shawn and Eddie," he huffed.

After all the gory detail, we layed there blowing smoke rings. Then Julian said he knew deep down it was over between them the last time he visited Stefan a few months ago, but he didn't want to face it. Now he wishes he had.

"There I was in Amsterdam, in AMSTERDAM, girl! I could have been fucking everything that walked. But no, no, I was trying to work it out. Anyway, one day I'm riding around on this bus doing some shopping and this beautiful man got on the bus. Well, we had eye contact, honey. And he very slowly slinked his way down the aisle (but not in a faggy way, very hot) and sat in the seat right behind me. After a few minutes I realized he was leaning forward and resting his arms across the back of my seat. Well, I turned around and his nose was touching mine--he was right here--(Julian held his hand up to his nose) I should have just grabbed him and kissed him, right there. I could tell he wanted me to. But I didn't."

I sighed and light another cigarette and then Julian said:

"He had black hair and the bluest eyes. I think about that boy every day. Every day."

i am a coffee whore

It's true, I am a whore for DD coffee. It owns me and I am its shameless slut. A writhing, sweating, panting, coffee craving wench.

I should probably be concerned but I'm not.

Even when I am on deadline and dangerously close to not filing on time, I cannot resist the lure, the siren call. I can smell the coffee beans, the steamy brew and I bolt.

Every day I get in my car and drive 10 miles round trip to buy my succulent DD coffee. I even threw out my coffee maker. I drink no home made brew. It has to be DD.

The cute boys who work the drive-thru window know my voice. I am like a crack head: "Hi you guys, I need me some brew." And it's there at the window, just like I like it. Cheesy white styrofoam -- large -- not "Grande." Please. No whipped topping or candy-ass chai. Just strong hot coffee. Oh, yeah, baby. My pulse is racing, I'm quivering as I guide the cup to my lips, ahhhhhhhhhh...

if loving it is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

small world

I sent my boss a link to a cool site this week and he sent one back to me that is beautifully written and charmingly witty. It's a blog written by a dog, and it occurred to me that the dog-blogger has the same name as my boss's dog. So I e-mailed him back and said "hey, wait a minute, is this your dog?" To which he replied: "yes."

So I said, "well, I have one too" ( a dog and a blog). He asked for the link but I declined. I like writing in anonymity. I like that the people I live with know nothing about it. No one I know does. If I knew my friends were reading, I would be guarded and I don't want to fucking edit myself every minute of my life. I need my own space, a room of one's own, as Virginia said.

Here is the funny part: we chose the same template and our writing styles are similar. Except that he is writing as a dog and I am writing as myself: a bitch.

things I do not give a shit about

...Blogs devoted to religion, babies, baby pictures, grandchildren, politics, poetry (sorry, it just becomes boring as shit after a while), prayer, dometic bliss, NASCAR, tropical fish, cancer, crappy jobs, languages other than English, recipes, education, wellness or stress management.

I also don't give a shit about value judgements (as in inflicting mine on others and others inflicting theirs on me), keeping score, or guilt.

PS: in 75 or so years we will all be dead and no one will give a shit about any of this. So my advice to you, my friend, is to go for it. Tell the assholes in your life that they're assholes and oh by the way, they can fuck off. Smoke a cigarette if you want to. Sleep with him/her if you want to. At least admit to yourself that you want to do whatever it is you're not supposed to want to do. Christ, do you really think not doing it will somehow make you a better person? Really?

Here's what you'll regret: losing your nerve.

Grow a pair. Do it. Be it. Get your fat ass up off the couch and Go. Fucking. Live.

flying fur

Many weird vibes in the air lately and odd things coming in the way of e-mails and memories and unexpected letters in the snail-mailbox (!) from old, old friends.

One such letter is from my dearest, oldest girlfriend, Leslie. She and I met when we were 13. She came to school with her shorts rolled up really high and wearing a t-shirt that said "U.S. Streaking Team." I thought she was cool. And she was. She and I shared our growing into womanhood years and our deepest secrets with one another. Even if a year or more goes by with no contact other than the usual Christmas and birthday cards that anyone in the house can pick up and read, she can call me up and tell me about something dark and loathsome that she thought about doing or actually did and she knows I will still love her and never tell a soul. Everyone should have a friendship like this.

Leslie is in the middle of unpacking from yet another move--she is married to a career military officer--and she ran across a letter I had written to her when I was neck-deep in the most dysfucntional relationship of my life. I was wildly in love and half-elated, half-devastated and ready to do a half-pike off the roof of my apartment building. Anyway, she scanned the original and mailed it to me. Odd. She and I have not talked in over a year. And I have recently been in touch with the object of my passion--he and I have re-connected electronically (thank god several states separate us now, otherwise I would be doing stupid things that could be very destructive). I read the letter now and recall all the drama behind the words, all the things I didn't tell her. I knew that I could not be with this man back then and I cannot be with him now.

I am house-sitting for some friends and they have three Alaskan Eskimos. They are hyper, hurtling masses of white ecstatic doggie-love. But there are massive white tumbleweeds of fur rambling all over the wood floors of the house. I have vacuumed more here in two days than I do at home in a month. I even have little wisps of angel-dog hair in my coffee cup. I itch. I am going home to shower and wash all my clothes and maybe pop a claritin. Don't get me wrong--the house is clean. Just furry.

mission control

well, hell yeah, it's a mess but I really do know where all my shit is. I do!

esoterica

things I dig:

• showers

people who let me pull in front of them in a traffic jam

Dunkin Donuts coffee: large, with cream and sugar

my sassy black boots

babies (other people's)

the smell of grass as it's being cut

a new hairdo that works

of all the songs in the world, that song coming on the radio or played by the band at just the perfect moment

firemen

my PC and all its components in perfect harmony

punctuation (sometimes...)

long subway rides

men who get it

the expectant hush in a theatre in that moment between the curtain opening and the lights coming up

sex

the New York Times

alcohol

sneaking a cigarette every once in a while

filing before deadline

Gumby and Pokey

the sound of my whole loud extended family from the next room on holidays

the tinkle of my dog's collar as she comes wandering down the hall to find me

the smell of coffee brewing

the smell of gasoline

preparing for a trip to see someone I love and am dying to look at in person

getting into a bed with fresh sheets

sleeping in

staying up all night

getting paid to write

peter

Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

your absence is unexcused

It makes no sense that I miss you so much sometimes. But we never made sense, so this is par, I suppose.

We hadn't seen each other or spoken in over a year, two, maybe, when you moved away. But when I found out you were gone for good it knocked the wind out of me.

No more chance of running into you. No more eye contact in a room packed with a 100 people. Those moments could wash away years between us and were something we learned to leave to chance, so it seemed to happen effortlessly with little engineering on either side. It was always good to see you once in a while. There was always that tiny, fragile thread still connecting us.

So we didn't end up together, but I always knew where I could find you and for years that was enough. Now, sometimes, it's harder. I drive down some streets and suddenly feel your absence. It diminshes me. When will I see you again? Will I ever? Probably not. Are you looking at the moon tonight too? Do you wince when you hear that song? Or do you smile now?

You remain my oldest, saddest secret, my regret, the one thing I never speak of to my girlfriends. This bubble only has room for you and me. Maybe that was the problem all along.

tail tales

I like reading bumper stickers.

I do not have one on my car because I am way too fickle to commit. Which is why I still have not gotten a tattoo, I mean, what if I change my mind a week later? Buyer's remorse and laser surgery is just too expensive...

Anyway, here are a few of the more interesting bumper stickers of which I have taken note recently:

"OH WELL, I WASN'T USING MY CIVIL LIBERTIES ANYHOW"

"PRO-CONSTITUTION, ANTI-BUSH"

"MY DOG IS SMARTER THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT"

"MY KID KICKED YOUR HONOR STUDENT'S ASS"

"IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT, ABORTION WOULD BE A HOLY SACRAMENT"

"DIP ME IN HONEY AND FEED ME TO THE LESBIANS"

"IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, BUY HER ANOTHER BEER"

"I JUST REALIZED I DON'T CARE"

"ENVSION WHIRLED PEAS"

and my personal favorite:

"I MAY NOT BE MR. RIGHT, BUT I'LL FUCK YOU."

picky

My co-worker, Frank, used to work at a big pharma company as a research chemist, I think. It was a scientific effort, I know that at least. Just cannot remember the proper title. Anyway, he rode the bus to and from work every day and so he spent a bit of time parked on the bench at the bus stop. This gave him plenty of time to observe.

He told me once that it was amazing how many people pick their noses while drivng. He found it fascinating as he sat there on the bench, and so he began to count the number of nose-miners he spied each day. He deveolped a graph (since he was a good scientist) to track nose-mining trends and found that people pick their noses more in the winter than in the summer.

Now Frank owns a pick-up that does not always run and he works from home. And he swears he does not pick whilst driving.

i'd know you

if you were the one way in the back of the flock and everyone was as pink as you and stood the same way and flapped around in just the same manner, still, I would know it was you.

And I would have a handful of something yummy and you would know so you would nonchalantly wriggle through the flock and make your way over to me and take a few tentative nibbles from my outstretched hand and I would coo and stroke your silky head. Then you would bite me and run back into the teeming mass. But I would still see you. Fucker.

we had no candle so we used a knife

So we had a pool party to celebrate Amy's official transition to womanhood. She's 30, so what better reason to get shit-faced and jump in the pool? We could not manage to find even one birthday candle so someone came up with the brilliant idea of jamming a kinfe into the heart of the cake. And yes, she did blow on it.

The water in the pool was the exact temperature of urine and we were less then energetic so we mostly floated around like stunned fish after the lake has been dynamited listening to Polly tunelessly mumble and mangle the lyrics to some song on my ELO CD.

Polly had a clean mammogram this week and we are all thrilled. And all her hair has grown back. The other news: Annie has a hunky new boyfriend named Mitch and recently remembered that she really does like sex after all! And Lisa is pregnant. All's right with the world.