not so sustainable

I have been trying to get with the green thing, honest, I have. I'm a recycling fool to the point that I even fish water bottles out of the kitchen garbage that the GITB has tossed in because that's the only option when the recycle bin in the garage is filled, of course. I have replaced all the light bulbs with the new-fangled bulbs that look like curly fries, and there is nary a spray can in my house. But. I cannot do the reusable canvas grocery bag. I see the good, earnest people of the world in line at Publix hauling their canvas bags filled with groceries and I admire them but I can't bring myself to do it. First, I shop infrequently, so when I do actually shop, it's almost two carts full. So how many cute little canvas bags would I actually need? Like 25? Probably. And I don't want to have one more thing hanging around my house. Especially something that can get stinky because some groceries invariably leak, pee, sweat or in some other way perspire. And then what? I have some smelly, non-hygienic bags stacking up somewhere in my house. I'm trying to go the other way--I have been downsizing like crazy and less really is more. The direct relationship between my anxiety level and the amount of clutter in my house is completely clear to me in my old age. I don't need most of the stuff I own and it's going. Every bag of suff I drop off at Goodwill makes me feel lighter. The compromise with the grocery bags is that I am that pain in the ass customer who slows the line by asking for paper. But I recycle it.

giving up actually works

Living in Inferno can be challenging if one entertains fantasies about daffodils and bluebonnets and manicured English gardens. Such dainty flowers incinerate almost instantly here in the sun and humidity. Pretty much the same thing with grass unless you are okay with pissing away thousands of gallons of precious water every month via an automatic sprinkler system--and for what? So we threw in the towel a few years ago and decided to go with xeriscaping. Our yard now resembles a tropical jungle but that's where we live. My neighbors' carefully cultivated spongy emerald St. Augustine lawns and perversely symmetrical hedges are kind of an odd, anal-retentive contrast. I like my out of control native jungle. And letting it do what it wants yields beauty such as this great bloom. So it's all good.

is it "oy vey" or "oi vey?"

my director wants me to perfect an accent that's "a blend of Russian-Yiddish-Brooklynese." Yeah. I can do that. Especially now that I am working with a dialect coach (a grumpy old man who in fact may actually predate dirt). This is hard work but I have to admit it's a blast.

the lover

My girlfriend, Ellen, is one of those salt-of-the-earth, no-fuss kind of gals who lets most stuff roll off her back, puts up with a lot of other people's shit and when they take her for granted the most, she is still totally there for them, every step of the way. Ellen has not had the most ideal of relationships with her mom and I suspect that her mom, a steel magnolia, would have preferred that Ellen had chosen to lead the sort of life she no doubt had in mind for her--you know--marry a dentist or lawyer (with deep Southern roots going back to the Federalist days) she met while an undergrad at Tulane, have a great house in Charleston or Chapel Hill, and a summer home in Maggie Valley and raise her strapping golden-haired sons to be quarterbacks and/or dental/law students in between Junior League meetings and hosting teas for the Episcopal churchwomen. That would have been just right. But, no, El dropped out of college to marry Roberto, a dude from the Dominican Republic, and they moved to Florida where they reared their two hell-raising, swaggering Dominican boys who did stuff like steal cars and set up a meth lab in the garage. They are good boys now, of course.

After much hyperventilation and drama, mama finally accepted El's life was what it was and they got on with it. It was a fine truce for a while, until Beulah took sick. She suffers from some sort of dementia with a special name that is the last name of the physician who managed to differentiate it from some other dementias but tragically, sort of sounds like what is actually wrong with her. I think it's Looper's dementia. Or something like that. The point is that Beulah now spends all of her time--and I mean every waking fucking minute--fully immersed in a gauzy make-believe world that occupies her as if she is watching a never-ending movie starring Fred and Ginger.

Ellen calls it dementia but it doesn't sound all that demented to me. I think it sounds like being on some pretty damn good drugs. Beulah lives in a fantasy world that comes complete with a 24-7 soundtrack of nothing but Italian opera music. And it seems that Ellen is one of the stars of the opera. Yes. Beulah is having a fantasy/delusion that my dear Ellen is having a wild illicit affair with a sweaty, smarmy Italian tenor. El finds that the most disturbing factor in all of this is that her mom really rags her ass when she visits her in the nursing home about how awful she is being to Roberto via her unfaithful and whorish behavior with The Tenor. Beulah is just appalled. So is Ellen.

"Can you believe it?????" she asked me the other day. "After all these years of treating Roberto like shit, NOW she decides he's the poor wounded party because I am allegedly screwing a hallucinogenic opera star!"

I asked her if Beulah listened to such music when she was coherent. Ellen said she didn't think so. But she's not sure. She doesn't remember.

enough

Unreality show

I don't know about y'all, but I do not do reality TV. I don't feel the need to go into the reasons why, but I will comment that I think the whole "reality" exploitation thing is our modern-day version of the coliseum with blood-thirsty sub-humans (the audience) getting their soulless, debase and depraved needs met through observing the anquish and tortured sufferings of others.

So I am not up on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars nor do I care to be but because I work in media, I am often forced to walk through a newsroom past the office of one of my friends, who covers media. He watches a lot of TV at work and the cool thing about hanging with him is getting to see advance DVDs of HBO and Showtime series way before they hit the air. Which was manna from heaven during my Sopranos and Deadwood addictions. Okay, yes, depraved, but at least it was not touted as "real." Which leads me to today's before and after artwork here to the left, which I stumbled across in my friend, the media critic's lair. So, OMG, you guys, WTF happened to Priscilla????? Is it me, or does it look like her face was melted off her skull in a horrible fire and her mouth was reconstructed with tissue trimmed from her labia? Holy plastic surgery gone waaaaaaay wrong, Batman! I realize the woman is in her 60s now, but I think she would have aged beautifully if she had just left herself the hell alone.

I think those dudes who hung out with Elvis all those years--the TCB dudes--the Memphis Mafia--whatever they called themselves--need to track down whoever did this to her face and at the very least force-feed him/her about a dozen peanut butter and banana sammiches. Jeebus Chrysler.

the sweet spot

The GITB has decided he has been off regular exercise long enough so he's going back to his kick-boxing class twice a week. Tonight he got all suited up and wandered into the bedroom where I was trying to edit a report while lying flat on my back with my laptop on my tummy. Not very effective, btw.

"Hey, honey, kick me in the balls, " he says..."I'm wearing my new cup."

I refused and he insisted and so I finally leaned over the side of the bed and socked him in the balls. It was very satisfying. A few minutes later the kid wandered in with the dog and said that the Tae Kwan Do teacher had left a message on the machine earlier that class is canceled tonight due to illness. The GITB was bummed.

who's a stupid whore?

um, yeah. That would be you.

V-Day

Yet another life lesson in how it's so not all about me. Not even remotely.

A few days before I was set to perform in the Vagina Monologues here in sunny Tampa Bay, Jane Fonda went on the Today Show to chat about this being the 10th anniversary of the VM and her role in the big-ass V-Day event in New Orleans next month. And then Jane said "cunt" on live, national television. And Meredith Viera looked exquisitely uncomfortable and blinked really hard a time or two. Then in the segment immediately following Jane's c-bomb, Meredith bowed and scraped and apologized for Jane's "inadvertent slip." What. Bullshit. Jane didn't slip. She said "cunt" and she meant to say "cunt." Cunt, cunt, cunt. That was it for me. If I had a shred of hesitancy left, Meredith's groveling apology eradicated it. Here's the thing: Meredith apologized for potentially offending anyone. No apology for the fact that this pejorative has been used as a weapon against women and girls for way too long.

Enywho...so the morning of the event John calls me to say that one of the cast members has fallen ill and could I read an additional monologue for him that night.

I asked which one it was, and he said “It’s the one that is based on the wide-spread and organized rape of young girls in Bosnia during the war over there.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he stopped.

There was a pause and he said, “Do you think your daughter would do it?”

“I don’t know, I’ll ask her,” I said.

I gave the script to Schmoopie and she took it into her room, sat on her bed and read. She came out a few minutes later and said she would do it.

That night, when she rose and walked to center stage, I held my breath.

“My vagina was my village,” she read, her voice soft and sweet and soaked in the
innocence that she is at this stage of her life.

She continued. “My vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing, sun resting, sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blonde straw.”

The auditorium was silent as she read. I heard a few gasps as the monologue grew darker and painted scenes of brutal soldiers and the rifles they used as tools for sexual assault, the horror of rape, the death of childhood and home and possibility, the violation of the vagina and all it signifies.

It was stunning.

There is still a lot to say about vaginas. I think that my daughter has a lot to say. And she and her vagina really haven’t even started getting to know one another yet. But they will.

({})

poor rick

so Rick Springfield was on Oprah today and he still looks just like this. Hot, hot, hottie McHotmeister. But the dozens of 50-somethings wiggling around and clapping and screaming as he crooned "Jessie's Girl?" They all looked like Hillary Clinton. Looking out into the audience and seeing his pants-suited peers must be really jarring for Rick. Let's hope for his sake and sanity he is prone to '80s flashbacks.

Happy V-Day

I heard Woody Allen being interviewd recently and his response to the interviewer's question about what lessons or truths he's learned in his long life made me laugh. (Woody is 73 now. Can you believe it?)

Woody didn't hesitate before he responded, "Nothing really." I could totally relate.

The older I get the more I know I don't know shit. As a kid I just assumed that the grown-ups knew everything there was to know and I also assumed that once I too reached adulthood, I would somehow magically be instilled with this all-knowing-ness. So when I became a young adult I was shocked, shocked by the adults (especially the older adults) with whom I crossed paths who were complete fucking idiots. And by that I do not mean mentally challenged due to some sort of genetic mishap. No, I am referring to the idiots who choose freely to be ignorant assholes.

But that is a whole 'nother rant. This rant is about love. WTF is love? Who knows.

I know that most of the times in my life that I have been "in love" I have been in the end:

A: actually, just wanting to have sex with the person;

B: hugely disappointed at best and;

C: completely devastated at worst.

But unlike Woody, I haven't learned zip. I have had some moments of clarity. They may make no sense to you, but I don't give a shit. They're my truths. So here goes:

*Guys sometimes say "Baby,I love you..." during sex because at that exact moment, they sort of do. I mean, can you blame them for blurting those words out when their tiny little brains are being flooded by an electrifyingly euphoric tidal wave of hormonal surging? What they are really (usually) saying is: "Holy shit, it's good to be alive and THIS FEELS FUCKING GREAT!!!!"

*Lust is a wonderful thing. But it is not sustainable as a constant if you share the same bathroom for a few years. But if you truly had it at first, it comes back in flashes here and there, usually when the house is kid-free thanks to sleep-overs or grandparents and you have engaged in a nice dinner and/or a prolonged happy hour. It can return and manifest in a really hot romp of sweating and hair-pulling and loud vocalizing and happy endings that make your home a happy, shiny place for at least a week afterwards. And that's good to know.

*Some people (okay, not just men) oh, fuck it--it's the men--only want to be with you when you don't give a shit about them. This is particularly maddening when it's a case where you are hot for him but he has a thing for someone else who treats him like utter dogshit. So you're all: "Hey!!! Hello??? Come over here!!! I'm the one who loves you and appreciates you!!! I'm the one who really does want to give you everything you want!!!" But do they listen? No. And then when you have seen the light and walked away, they decide you may not be a bad bet after all. But at this point you're turned off and disgusted and don't give a shit anymore.

*Some of us say "I love you" without having the slightest fucking idea what that means. And how can we? It doesn't mean the same thing to everyone.

*If you find someone who loves you, wants to be with you and sticks by you no matter what (excluding acts of animal cruelty, child abuse, and certain felonies), you're good. If there's mutual respect and friendship the rest can be worked out.

*I know that I do not have one singular soul mate. I have many. And that's not a slam on the GITB who is awesome. It's about the reality of life and the odds and laws of fate and all that stuff. I know that there are a few people out there in the universe who I will never meet who are perfectly suited for me and with whom I could have shared a long, happy lifetime. Others are great guys I've met and adored but we just didn't get the timing right. A few drift in and out of my life even now. There's the guy I dated off and on in high school and college who got married impulsively at 21 then found himself single when we were in our early-30s. I loved him. But he tracked me down a few weeks after I had hooked up with the GITB. There's another old friend of mine with whom I have lunch once a year. We connect on every level and I think he's adorable. There's nothing going on, but given the right circumstances and timing for both of us, no doubt in my mind it would be a wonderful relationship. And there's nothing wrong with knowing that. Nothing is ever black and white. It's trying to force things and people into perfect compartments that causes the pain.

*I have experienced all sorts of love: puppy love; unrequited love; young, first love; intense, ill-advised psycho love; rebound love that was less real than other love but absolutely necessary; lust-driven love; and, finally, thankfully, contented, mature,I'll-take-care-of-you-after-you've-had-surgery-and-need-help-getting-on-and-off-the-toilet-love. And it's the best.

I will use the "C" word on V-Day

although I have asked my mom not to attend.

the amaryllis has bloomed

yay.

I wish I knew how to quit you.

fire cracker

when I was a teenager I had quite a lucrative babysitting racket going on. I unwittingly stumbled onto a goldmine: the field of specialization babysitting-- handling boys --which earned me hazard pay. Most of the families I sat for had packs of grubby feral boys who were (for some odd reason) like wet sauerkraut in my hands. This was not because I allowed them to smoke/drink/use foul language (although I suppose I did from time-to-time) but anyway, I never sat for sweet little girls who wanted me to play dress up with them and brush their hair and have tea parties and read Amelia Bedelia aloud to them.

No, I sat for boys who wanted to catch lizards and put them in the freezer and then play with them while they were semi-frozen and mostly in shock, or worse, they wanted to stuff the occasional firecracker into the mouth of the pop-sickled lizard, and, well, you know. They wanted to pee in the yard and ride their bikes off the diving board or roof into the pool and try to start their mom's car that was parked in the garage and look at their dad's Playboys and take bites right from the loaf of Velveeta and, well, I allowed that boys will be boys and so I let them now and then and so it went. The word spread among the moms in the neighborhood desperate for a night out that ell was cool sitting for boys and the boys liked me fine and I was booked all the time and made great money babysitting the cast of Lord of the Flies and it was good.

One of my favorite families to sit for was the Martins. They had two little tow-headed boys who were sweet as pie and the parents had a great collection of borderline-naughty paperbacks stashed on the top shelf in the TV room that I liked to peruse after I put Greg and Brad to bed. My favorite was The Sensuous Woman followed closely by The Happy Hooker.

The boys' mom was a statuesque redhead who worked at a nearby children's hospital and their dad was a fun-loving bad-boy type who I realized after I became an adult was what my dad calls "a ne'er-do-well." He had one job after another--none for very long, one venture after another that didn't quite pan out, wild hairs, crack-pot ideas and nothing that ever really took off or stuck. The boys were lucky that their mom was a grown-up and stable because their dad was Peter Pan. At one point he worked in the area making appearances as Ronald McDonald.

One night I went over to babysit and there was a pool table in the living room where a nice traditional set of living room furniture had been the week before. A month later he wallpapered the new "pool room" with tin foil and painted huge planetarium-ish spheres on the walls in hues of bright cobalt blues and deep bottle greens. Lovely, really, but kind of odd. The mom and dad split and got back together a few times. I could see that she was in love with him, but I could also see that she was embarrassed by his failure to step up to the plate and be a grown-up. They were not similar in any way. He married up when he married her and I think she was never not aware of that reality.

Eventually they split for good and he kind of faded away. I ran into him at a party when I was home one summer during college and we had a few drinks together and he seemed sad and depressed, kind of a sad, big kid.

The youngest of the two boys is a professional chef now and he lives out west. His mom and my mom are still friends and last week my mom mentioned that Brad is going to be on a new TV show on NBC called "Moment of Truth." It is one of those heinous, soulless game shows that gets people to vomit up all their pain and humiliation on camera for the chance to win a lot of money but they have to do it while attached to a lie detector machine. If they lie they lose all the money they have won. I am sickened that Brad is going to be on this show next week. It breaks my heart. His mom told my mom that one of the lines of questions the show's producers asked Brad was about his dad and they actually flew his dad to LA to surprise him on stage with a forced reunion. I say forced because under the circumstances -- on national TV --isn't it? They have been estranged since the boys were little. I guess it has a happy ending. At least for the segment that will air. Who knows what will happen afterwards. I hope it's good. I hope.

we hired the lesbian to tile the bathroom

Because the other two tile guys who came by to give us an estimate leered at me AND my kid. Ew. I told the GITB that if I have to be subjected to an ass crack in order to get the bathroom re-done, I much prefer Cathy, the strapping young lesbian, (who I KNOW will do a fabulous job because she's a girl) who, by the by, does not wear her work pants slung below her beer gut. She wears a belt, thank you very much.

Happy New Year

Things are going well. Too well. So rather than worry about what is not going so well, I now have anxiety that things are going so well that a major shitstorm of epic proportion surely must be around the corner. But maybe not. Maybe my karma ratio has finally evened out. Maybe the good stuff is finally catching up with the not-so-hot stuff and all this is gravy--good gravy that will not rise from the gravy boat and sucker punch me when I least expect it. Here's what I do know for sure: when I am making an effort each day to not be an asshole, I feel so much better about myself and the whole world. Even though one day we will all be dead and no one will give a shit.

turkey trotting into the day

getting up at the crack of dawn to go run a 5K race (like my dad--the dude in the blue visor) and my kid (the schmoopie next to him in orange shirts) with 5,000 of your neighbors may sound kinda kooky but it's been a tradition in my family for 27 years. We have not missed one Turkey Trot in almost three decades. The GITB and I did the one-mile mosey. But it still means I get extra pie. 'Cause, hey, I walked a mile this morning, dammit.

yes, I did say the neighbors raise donkeys

There is nothing like a 700-mile road trip with your kid and your dog -- three women out on the open road armed with Diet Coke, pepper spray and a bag of leftover Halloween candy. It was the best weekend trip ever. I picked Schmoopie up after school and we hit the highway, giddy with anticipation and pleased with our independence. We arrived in the middle of the night after a harrowing last five miles--a straight-up corkscrew incline to the top of a mountain on which the cabin of my dreams is nestled. It is a gorgeous piece of property in the Smoky Mountains adjacent to the Smoky Mountain National Park (so nice to have friends with money) but when my ears started popping as the engine whined and I prayed we encountered no vehicles coming the other direction because the road was not wide enough to accommodate two vehicles, it was a little tense. Luckily the girls slept through it and I had Todd Rundgren singing reassuringly in my ear bud which helped. Thank you, Todd. And Jesus Christ, can it be any more pitch black? Haven't these mountain people heard of street lights for god's sake? But the stars were so brilliant and huge up there that it was as if an angel had leaned down and sprinkled them all over the mountainside, like a sugary canopy just over our heads we could touch without even standing on our toes.

So we staggered into the cabin and collapsed in a heap, pausing only to turn on the heat. But when we awoke the next day--heaven. The leaves were at their absolute glory of explosive color and when Schmoopie got out of bed and opened her shutters she gasped then shrieked in delight at the sight of the valleys and mountain slopes she could see from her window -- all afire in purple and yellow and gold and orange, as if someone had snuck in and thrown buckets of florescent paint on everything as we slept. The trees vibrated with color and the constant breeze sent a slow, steady shower of leaves whispering down on our heads as we walked in the woods, explored creeks, fed the donkeys the neighbors down the road raise and collected every variety of leaf we could find to press in the books on the mantle.

We talked about boys and bras and periods and the pros and cons of thong underwear and death and kissing and The Great Gatsby and the way my grandmother baked every Saturday, lining the counter-tops of her kitchen with mounds of bread dough covered with damp linen cloths, the smell tantalizing every cell of my body as the dough rose and aromas wafted from the oven-- and everything else that a 14-year-old girl might want to discuss with a mom who is not totally uncool. We built huge fires in the fireplace each night and snuggled on the couch and sipped coffee and painted each other's toenails. At one point as I watched her feed carrots to the smallest of the baby donkeys it occurred to me that she is everything I never was as a teenager--she is my hero and I love her so much. She will leave us too soon and I want to cram as much time with her into our crazy-busy lives right now as I can. This is the stuff that matters.

October

My lovely woman-child and I are trekking to the mountains of North Carolina in two weeks to laze around the cabin of a friend for a few days and walk in the leaves. She and I last walked together through oceans of golden and umber leaves in Ohio when she was a little over a year old, so I think it is time that she again see the glory that is the fall in the north. We will be accompanied by Miss Daisy, the fuzz-covered wildebeast who will romp through the woods with us and allegedly provide us with companionship and protection. The GITB will be home rebuilding the deck. In gratitude, I offer a poem about Autumn:

On Fields O'er Which the Reaper's Hand has Passed

On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has pass'd

Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,

My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind

And of such fineness as October airs,

There after harvest could I glean my life

A richer harvest reaping without toil,

And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will

In subtler webs than finest summer haze.

Henry David Thoreau

PS--hey Amber--wanna come along?

but we can't

because time passes no matter how tightly we hold on, no matter how warm and comforting the embrace. Things change and nature has a way of sneaking up and kicking us all in the ass. Sigh.

I knew it was you. I just pretended not to

I graduated from high school in 1979. Nineteen-seventy-fucking-nine, people and I still can't get away from it.

A girl I knew in high school died of breast cancer about a month ago and it felt like the right thing for me to do to attend her memorial. I didn't really know her as an adult, but as a teenager, Sarah was a super cool chick, very much into jazz and organic peanut butter and foot massages and just being whoever and whatever you felt like being back in high school and I really can't imagine that as an adult she changed all that much. She was a genuine free spirit and didn't give a damn what people thought.

Some people thought she was a weirdo back then and some folks still do, I suppose. I was at the community theatre the other night and as I casually shot the breeze with one of our musicians before the show I asked him if he knew Sarah and he said "Yeah. She was a strange woman. A great musician but a strange chick." I didn't feel the need to argue with him about it because his reality is his and mine is mine and whatever. Sarah was her own person and she was not like most people so it doesn't offend me that someone would think of her or refer to her as strange. She probably would have found it funny.

Sarah graduated a year ahead of me and we were never close but I always liked her. I heard when she finished undergrad she decided against med school even though she got accepted and instead spent a few years travelling around the world making a living as a street performer. We did not stay in touch after high school and went our own ways as we all do but I've always thought of her with fondness on the rare occasions that I do think about those days. When I read in the newspaper about a year ago that she was battling breast cancer and some area musicians were holding a benefit concert to help her with medical expenses it made me really sad. I decided to send a check but I never got around to it. She was always warm and I remember her kindness to me at a particularly dark time in my life when I was incapable of being kind to myself. So I wanted to acknowledge that in some small way which is why I decided to go to her funeral. I felt like Sarah would know I stopped by to say thanks and I liked the idea of that.

So I went to the memorial which was a rocking music-filled celebration that Sarah had planned at a Presbyterian church in the old neighborhood. I was surprised to learn during the service that Sarah had become an elder in the church in recent years. I sat in the back row of the sanctuary, and as the church filled up before the service started, the guy seated next to me greeted a lot of people who walked by us as they made their way to pews up front. He seemed to know a lot of people who looked vaguely familiar to me. Some I recognized but others had faces that I knew I knew some 30 years ago but could not now attach names to. It was a very odd feeling. I also noticed that the guy turned and smiled warmly at me several times but I shrugged it off--he probably figured I was there alone and he was being nice. Then midway through the service it dawned on me who he was. I sort of leaned a little toward him, looking straight ahead and said "John?" and he whispered back "Ell?". John and Sarah and I had all been band geeks. I remember him most for his Prince Valiant hair and the way his ears stuck out like handles on a trophy. He played the trombone in high school and dated a girl named Claudette who had a wicked unibrow but a rocking body. John is married now, has two kids and is a firefighter. He'd printed a bunch of photos from a trip the marching band had taken in 1977 and brought them with him. He wordlessly handed me the envelope and I browsed through them. It seemed like yesterday. And it seemed like someone else's life a million or so years ago.

After the service John and I hung out, I chatted casually with a few more acquaintances from high school and John and I exchanged e-mail addresses and I left. I'm glad I went.

But I had the distinct feeling that a few of my high school acquaintances were no less thrilled to see me than I was to see them. That reality came to me with some discomfort--resigned discomfort but a queasiness nonetheless. Teenagers can be such fucking assholes and I certainly was no exception. John seemed thrilled to renew our acquaintance (I guess I was never a bitch to him, I don't know, I really don't remember a lot about high school and a lot of what I do recall with clarity I really wish I didn't). I was no angel as a teenager but I wasn't evil. At least I don't think so. But I may have been. I think some people who are assholes as young people either get their shit together and finish the job of raising themselves into adulthood and become decent grown-ups and others just remain assholes. I am definitely the former. I have gotten my shit together and I am a decent human being now but there was a time many moons ago when it could have gone either way. Knowing that I have been granted a longer life than Sarah, who so deserved it more, humbles me and makes me want even more fervently to be as decent and kind and productive of a human being as I can possibly be.

Which brings me to my last story. Remember the show I mentioned? It was a god-awful musical that was miscast and badly directed and badly sung by most of the cast but it did have it's brilliant and moving moments and the audiences loved it.

One of the girls in the cast approached me last Sunday--the final performance of a three-week run that felt like an eternity in hell's coffee bar--and asked me if I had gone to ____ high school. I said that, yes, I had. She said "My mom wanted to know because she recognized you by your bio in the program." Which is flabbergasting to me because there is really no identifying info about me in my theatrical bio that could in any way connect me to the high school I attended. It was weird. Her mom must have recognized my headshot in the marquee in the lobby and because I really pretty much do look like I did in high school (my ass not included), that must have been it. But this woman would have eaten broken glass before she admitted it. And I had seen her in the lobby on opening night and had recognized her but chose to keep walking because she was a total bitch to me in high school so why the hell would I want to chat her up now, you know?

So what I wanted to say at that moment was "Tell your mom to kiss my ass." But I didn't. I said, "Oh! Wow! Small world! How is she?" even though I don't give a rat's ass how she is. The only thing the daughter could come up with was "Well, she's divorced and she's kind of unemployed right now." I stood there looking at this girl thinking that she looked very much like her mom which isn't a compliment, and it didn't make me feel good. It made me feel like I need to work harder on being kind.

I have a notation on my to-do list that reads "Donation to charity in Sarah's name." I need to do that first thing tomorrow.

"Never has there been a good war or a bad peace." Benjamin Franklin

we need to get our asses the hell out out of the Middle East.
That is all.

Queen of the May

Happy birthday Randy, the sweetest queen I've ever known and the best girlfriend a girlfriend has ever had. Love ya, Miss Otis!

to my Coloroado soulmate: I have a great title for your manuscript: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky.

to my Destin soulmate: I forgot to ask you about the hiker. Is he still? Have you been in touch?

PS--my breast biopsy came back benign.

still hotter'n hell

My kid is off to her first day of high school tomorrow morning. I cannot believe it. She finished her required summer reading this morning and shot off an articulate and insightful summary of the Old Man and the Sea in no time--I was impressed that she got all the metaphor, the existential crisis and Hemingway's drama queen bent all on her own. She's a pretty cool kid. We have one more afternoon of sitting poolside--me working and her musing about the lackluster sequel of High School Musical. Life is sweet.

we are two months into the annual hurricane season with nary a tropical storm or even significant rains lately. Which makes me nervous. The last real ass-kicker of a hurricane we had close to home was Elena in 1985 and that was bad. The worst ones seem to kick up around Labor Day so I'm wondering if the unusually quiet summer storm season is more of the proverbial foreboding calm before a major ass-kicking from mother nature. I hope not.

On other fronts, Schmoopie is preparing to enter her freshman year of high school. I am stunned that she will be a HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT in a week and more depressing--that the time we have with her here at home with us is winding down. In four years she'll be gone. Argh.

Did I mention that the small, familial mom and pop operation I've worked for for 5 years was recently purchased by an entrepreneur from Seattle? It's been painful. It's been entertaining. I fear we will not exist a year from today. I hope I am wrong. But I don't think I am.

more fun on vacation

my kid is in love with a dolphin. At least he is appropriate age (17) and a mammal (unlike many of my former paramours).

more reasons why it aint so bad living in Inferno

we can get to Key West in short time.

yeah, baby

Oh, vacation, how I adore you.

I am contemplating getting a tattoo.
That is all.

hope yours was dandy

Nothing beats fireworks over the water. Awesome. We're off to the keys for vacation. Lots of snorkeling, lounging and pina coladas. Yay.

o-no!

one of my dearest lady friends confided to me the other day that she is pretty sure she has never had an orgasm. I told her that if she isn't quite sure -- she hasn't. Her eyes widened and she said "Well, maybe I have almost. I felt this tingling sensation a few times." Again, I assured her--if she had experienced an orgasm, chances are pretty damn good that she would be sure of it. I instructed her to get herself hooked up with a "Bob" (battery-operated boyfriend). BTW--my friend has been married for almost 25 years. I will never be able to look at her husband the same again. I'm a big girl-- I know I'm responsible for my own orgasm and all, but sheesh. What a putz. I dread the next dinner party.

the pride promenade in my hometown

what a glorious day of people letting their flags fly.

This is my Uncle Pete. He owns a small family restaurant in the downtown district of a rust-belt city. The restaurant smells exactly the same as it did when I was a kid, and my first sharp memory of being in Uncle Pete's restaurant is Christmas, 1966. My Dad had just returned from his first 12-month tour in Vietnam and we drove all night to spend the holidays not with family we are related to by DNA but the family we are related to by memory and affection, loss and shared history.

Uncle Pete isn't my genetic uncle (actually, he is my Godfather, I have the fading black and white pictures of him holding me in his meaty paw like a football on my christening day to prove it). Uncle Pete and my Dad met in basic training before they shipped off to Korea in 1956. They formed the core of a tight posse of Rangers who hung together through something harrowing enough to bond them for low these 50 years (but of which they have never spoken outside of their circle), made it back to the U.S., some stayed in and some rotated out (my Dad went back and finished college and OCS and re-upped as an officer and did another tour in Vietnam and later, Thailand and Cambodia).

Pete went back to his big fat Greek family in the northeast but he and Dad and their gang remain tight, through marriages, kids, divorces, the loss of two of their buddies in Southeast Asia (the only two times I have ever seen my father cry), illness and now, the assault of age.

Uncle Pete has always been like a second Dad to me. He's the kind of guy I can call at 3 a.m. and tell him I need $5,000 no questions asked and he's there. He wears Aqua Velva and always carries a little black comb in his back pocket. He goes to mass every Sunday and calls women "broads" and he cried when Roy Orbison died. They don't make guys like my Uncle Pete anymore. Happy Birthday Uncle Pete and congrats on the new heart valves. May your heart beat a gazillion more times.

I saw one of these on U.S. 19 today as I drove home trying to outrun the sunset. It pulled up next to me at a red light and I knew what it was just by the sound of it and the silhouette in my periphery. So I closed my eyes and heard David Bowie and Freddie Mercury howling about pressure and it was 1987 and we were driving home late at night, the windows down and the smell of cigarettes wafting through the humid air and I wanted to floor it and crank up the stereo as loud as it would go so that David and Freddie were screaming so loudly the words punched through my chest and out through the back of my seat then through the back of the car and out into the evening, swirling skyward...

Why - why - why ?

Love love love love love

Insanity laughs

under pressure we're cracking

Can't we give ourselves one more chance

Why can't we give love that one more chance

Why can't we give love give love give love give love give love give love give love give love give love

'Cause love's such an old fashioned word

And love dares you to care for

The people on the edge of the night

And loves dares you to change our way of

Caring about ourselves

This is our last dance

This is our last dance

This is ourselves

Under pressure

Under pressure

Pressure

parting is such sweet sorrow (but don't put it in writing, moron)

So we closed the show last night, struck the set, had a nice little cast & crew party and bid a tearful fare-thee-well to one another.

The two boys who played my sons in this show (reprising the same roles we all played in a blockbuster two years ago and won regional theatre awards for but who's bragging?) headed back to college, one to Tallahassee and the other to Orlando to jump into summer jobs, summer classes and internships. I say "boys" but they are 23 and 21 now and one of them actually grabbed my ass several times in the course of the last two months which was a little unsettling but what the hell? What 40-something broad doesn't mind a 20-something cutie grabbing her ass backstage once in a while? Huh? I love them both and it was hard to say goodbye. But anyway.

One sweet little tradition in the theatre is the practice of gift or card-giving. Sometimes the gifts are gags sometimes not, but there is, at the very least, an exchange -- on opening night or closing night -- of some sort of sentimentalism that may make some gag but there it is.

Yesterday's gift/card exchange was especially memorable. I snapped lots of pix throughout the six-week rehearsal period and our month-long run and put together little albums for all five of my cast mates. The boys wrote me sweet, lovely letters and presented me with trinkets to remember them by. Flowers were exchanged, cookies were exchanged, etc.

The guy who played my estranged husband (let's call him "Brad") wrote us all letters. Like his character, Brad is likewise estranged from the world. He is a bitter divorcee and kind of a weird dude, but a dead-on actor who met me line-for-line in every scene we had together. He was a joy to work opposite from onstage. But backstage, he and the woman who played my sister (let's call her "Ginger"), another bitter divorcee who recently became engaged to a sweet man she met at church were at each other's throats nonstop. She became a sniping shrew as the weeks wore on and he became a bombastic pompous ass. The one-upping of insults was ridiculous and especially so because they are both professed "Christians" and don't drink or swear or do any of that vile stuff. At first the rest of us kind of found it amusing but after a while it became exhausting. Like a real family.

So anyway, Brad's letters to his cast mates created a stir with the boys because they amounted to cursory sentimentality followed by lists of acting tips which really affronted both of them. Mine was pedestrian, garden variety sentimentality. But the one he wrote to Ginger was the best. The. Best.

Because she and he had been fighting so much, she feigned disinterest in what Brad may have had to say and pitched the envelope that read "Ginger" into her tote bag. When the stage manager stopped by she noticed it peeking out of Ginger's bag and asked,

"So, what did Brad have to say to you, Ginger?" To which Ginger replied,

"Oh, who cares? Throw it away. Or read it yourself, I don't give a rat's patootie."

"Really, you want me to read it?" Asked the stage manager.

"Sure--read it out loud to us," Ginger said, sashaying across the dressing room and closing the door for privacy. So as I finished my hair and adjusted the lines on the back of my stockings, our stage manager (my 13-year-old daughter) opened the envelope.

My first hint that maybe this might not be a good idea was when Ginger leapt to her feet and said, "Be careful! Don't tear the paper!" As Schmoopie opened the sealed flap and read...

"Dear Ginger, I may never again know the love of a woman but no matter what lies ahead for me, I will always treasure the memory of our last night together. I cannot forget the vision of your naked body bathed in blue light, the curves of the mounds and the musky scent of your womanliness, the depth of our hunger and passion, the spiritual feeling of our lovemaking, deeper and deeper..."

We three were so stunned we were frozen, unable to move. My sweet little daughter looked up from the paper, her eyes wide. "He saw you NAKED?????!!!!!!????" she asked.

After a long moment of silence (and all that ricocheted through our heads in that moment) Ginger jumped to her feet, knocking over the chair she had just vacated which collapsed to the floor with such alarming clattering as metal chairs are want to do, that the boys rushed down the hallway and knocked on our door to make sure we were alright.

Ginger ripped the paper from Schmoopie's hand and loudly and dramatically (as drama queens do so well) proclaimed Brad's insanity. But we know better. Brad and Ginger totally did the nasty.

Ew.

...and finally FINALLY rain

I durn near wept with relief to see the midday sky darken to this today. Pray it really is the earnest arrival of the rainy season. My poor little parched yard will finally wake up and shake itself off and put on some sassy summer green after months of huddling for shade in the brown sandy thatches that passed for "ground cover" lo these past few (but too many) months.

heat, humidity....

but the bouganvilla looks spectaular. This gorgeous fuscia explosion lolling across my fence and tickling the oak tree under its chin grew from a tiny clipping my neighbor, Mr. Jim, gave me.

I spent the weekend housesitting for a friend. Huge mental health break and just when I was starting to talk to myself my friend Jen dropped in for wine and baked asparagus bites and talk about boys and a night swim. The water is still a little chilly but not enough to keep us out of it. As usual. Plunge.

the maxipad as a Post-it and other urban musings...

the GITB is endlessly fascinated by the intense bonding that often takes place in a short space of time when people are removed from their natural habitats, families, jobs, etc., and supplanted in strange environs. Such lift-outs occur in my masters program which allows distance work but requires grad students to live on campus one glorious, alcohol and neurosis/ego-soaked week per semester, requiring me to trek from hearth and home 700 miles to the north to commune with my classmates. We are all "serious" writers in pursuit of MFAs. Yes, I know.

This most recent residency, which ended Saturday (and from which I am still recovering) was especially raucous and emotional. One of my buddies from North Carolina told me that the moon phase may have contributed somewhat to the nonstop mayhem that ensued for eight days. SZ said in an e-mail to me that "there must have been something to the whole two moons blue moon thing in May." I think she's so right.

And as nuts as it was, it was difficult to part this time and the specter of re-entry made us all a little uncomfortable. Colin headed to the Smokies to "just sit in the woods and think for a day or two..." before heading home to his wife and three adorable girls in Myrtle Beach. Amber picked up a rental car and headed up I-85 and from there to Virginia to nestle in the bosom of her mom and do laundry and ruminate about bald boys and boys who do yoga and write poetry about vaginas before she flies home to Destin. Em headed back to the hated Buckeye state to confront Alex and his hysteria over the move to Germany. "He's waiting for me to come back and make it all okay," she said. And she will. Because she is Emily.

I drove home in a haze of cigarette smoke (I only smoke on the road to and from school and at school--it's stupid, I know, but fuck it) and channel-surfed the FM waves for 10 hours (the perfect block of time--enough for me to wrap my head around most of what went down the previous week and prepare for re-entry and the max my ass can stand sitting in the car). The bountiful pukiness on the radio at 1 a.m. ranges from: "Stop! The love you save may be your own, darling look ways before you cross me, you're headed for a danger zone..." to "Sorry, I never told you all I wanted to say..." Luckily, after driving through the black hole in the universe that only allowed me to receive stations that played the Jacksons and/or Mariah Carey, I landed on a classic hard rock station somewhere in the bowels of Georgia and reveled in Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep and the Rolling Stones. Thank you, Jeebus.

retreat

I am developing an affinity for blue moons with orange slices
getting up early and meaning it
bald men who wear Ramones t-shirts and baggy pants
dining outdoors with freeloading grad students who are about to go to Sweden for the summer
and plan to not spend a dime
liver mush and pig's feet in the grocery store
and aisles that stock cans of Our Lady of Guadalupe room spray, stagnant sweet roses
having no dishes to wash or carpools to manage, no dog to walk
stretching out on a twin bed (alone!), my shades pulled up so I can watch the tree branches shimmy as music drfts through from
the room next door

Good Boy

My co-worker, Mike, and his wife, Molly, lost their beloved dog, Hank yesterday. Hank was no spring chicken and has had health challenges lately but Mike and Molly have been the type of parents who did anything and everything to ease his pain. Molly took him to a doggie acupuncturist and labored over Hank's meals, feeding him a whole food-only diet. But still, Hank's passing was unexpected, sudden and we are all bereaved, but most especially Mike and Molly. Hank was one of the coolest dogs who's ever lived and my little corner of the world is dimmer because he's gone.

Here is a blog entry that Hank dictated and Mike wrote back in October, 2005:


Of Dogs, Blogs, and Automobiles

Freedom is the taste of speed on the tongue, of eyes half closed against wind that flaps and flutters your ears around your neck. Head out the car window, a succession of scents overwhelms you. The fried chicken restaurant, diesel fumes, rotting seaweed on the beach, the sweaty men in the road selling newspapers, gas station pumps, and dumpsters...it's endless and blending, a fast flowing, fluid landscape of smells that can be just too much for your average Labrador.

Sometimes it's best just to sit panting and waiting, getting the occasional whiff, biding your time till you sense you're nearly there, wherever it is. So, so often, you just know you're almost there. Maybe it's the bank, where dog biscuits mysteriously appear out of plastic projectiles zinging through noisy, popping tubes. Maybe it's the shore or the lake or the park (hurrah!). Maybe it's the dreaded vet, where you try to disappear behind your human. Or maybe it's Petsmart, just jam-packed with shelves of mouth-watering wonders.

Cars are the portals to other worlds, barely understood by us dogs. We willingly, even eagerly enter these alarming machines because they're our chariots to adventure, chance and companionship. It seems like car makers should have been thinking about dogs for a long time, but it's just not so. Only now has a new kind of car been invented, the "wonderful open-hearted wagon," or WOW. It has a special seat belt for bigger dogs so they can buckle up and it has built-in smaller crates for littler dogs.

As for me, I don't know if I need one or not. Mike and Molly already buckle me up in the backseat, tethering my harness to the seatbelt with some kind of strap. Oh, I know I look pretty geeky and sheltered compared to those daredevil dogs hanging loose in the back of pickup truck beds, eyeballing me in pity and disdain. Those dogs are just too cool for training school. But then Mike stops the car short, jerking me forward, and I'm suddenly glad to be wearing a seatbelt. I worry about those other Labs who could crack their craniums on the cabs of trucks. Truth be told, I wouldn't trade spots with them for a bank vault of dog biscuits.

damn thee

whoever the twit is who invented "heelies," (those damnable sneakers that have little tiny wheels tucked into the soles) ought to be smacked by a smelly sock with a bar of soap in the toe. Because it really hurts. Which is my point.

Dear "Heelie" inventor,

You suck.

That is all.