Sometimes you are lucky... Laugh. Sometimes your soul is in the blender... Laugh harder.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Previews
1) Hanukkah Re-do: Why the Hell not? On any given night half of the household was sick during Hanukkah. Now that the festival of lights is over, the youngest one blinks Manga large, tear-filled eyes today and says, "Mommy, when are we going to shred the potatoes for latkes?" Looks like the miracle continues into 16 nights?!?
2) The Last Supper meets Asian Porcelain Porn Spent a few days in NYC with my adorable mother and was struck by the odd juxtapositions offered in that city. Yep, I took pictures.
3) Bish and Dame It - Teaching the next generation to cuss. I thought the hubby was getting our son closer to nature, instead he was teaching him the intricate laws of obscenities.
4) Well, looky there: I'm a joiner! - I was raised Unitarian Universalist - the only portal into religion for the non-joiners and staunch individualists of this world now that "Father Ted" is off the air. At 9 I already had issues with the rigid strictures of the Brownies. ("What do you mean we meet every Wednesday?") I believe that line dancing needs to be subverted and I relish going in through the out door. So how did I develop this recent compulsion for joining?
Don't those sound just grand? We'll see if I have a long enough attention span to write any more this week.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Blogger, Death Princess, Novelist
Monday, November 01, 2010
Novel Ideas
Before the Nano hit squad comes to bludgeon me with red pens and coffee cups: I think it is a great idea for other people. I have always openly admired NaNoWriMo participants when reminded of them around November 20. I always like to think, "Oooh if only I had known in October."
But realistically, this is a recipe for disaster. I am not a good "daily"participant in anything except taking my medicine. And I can be a little iffy on the meds every now and again, so maybe that is not the best example. 2,000 words a day. A novel in a month. It just gives me the willies.
Anyway in spite of my fear, my unreliability, my poor health, my other commitments, my lack of plot, and the wee bit of sanity I cling to, I am doing it. I am 474 words in and I haven't ruptured any crucial blood vessels yet. I'll try to drop a line or two here at the blog. I owe you pictures from rebuilding in New Orleans post-Katrina. I'll put those up when writing block hits. That should be Thursday if my past is any indication.
One hint: my plot is NOT what if Yoda was a hobbit/vampire hybrid.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Just What Your Funeral Needs
I loved these tree balls. Again it was the language barrier, but I did catch that they take very little time to dissolve. A reminder from me and my funeral buddies: cremains are inert. You will not be fertilizing your tree with Uncle Gerardo's ashes. They will just be peacefully co-existing. See my previous post and you'll find where you can procure some horse manure for fertilization.
And the Steinway shiny black casket would be good for the man we call in my family Grandaddy Babe. Babe has created multiple generations of Star Trek fans in our family. I think it only appropriate that we bury him in something that looks like what Mr. Spock was briefly laid to rest in.
An SUV hearse for when you need that extra room. Or is it the horsepower? Driving in snow? Who do they think they are kidding? This is all about the bling.
Thousands of Funeral Directors Again
This was the best convention for incorporating local funeral customs as a jazz funeral was conducted in honor of those funeral directors and their loved ones who have died in the past year. Great music, a good homily, and everything ran smoothly as one would expect from the pros represented. Then there were the elements of the jazz funeral: from the dirge to the costumes, the horses, the band, the waving of the white hankies, the move from sorrow to jubilation, and the dancing in the street. I was very pleased that Emporia, Virginia's divine Miss Edna whom I eulogized this past summer was one of the honorees. I danced and waved a hankie in her honor.
In addition to the jazz funeral, there were classes on everything from embalming to marketing, from green cemeteries to business management. I did not include pictures of those, because the fantastic dancers from the funeral are better looking and more interesting to readers of this blog.
Honky Tonk Queen
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Positive Obsessions
Your Honor, I plead guilty by reason of obsessive teen behavior to the charges of creating a public nuisance, curse and abuse (at Samantha Fox and Full Force for unleashing that demon hymn into the world), and impersonating a pouty British accent. My defense is that my co-defendants and I were teenagers when the song was released and thus had no immunity to what Billy Collins calls "a mad fan belt of a tune".
I think it is a decent defense. But I have my own bail bondsman and lawyer just in case I'm wrong.
I have a brain full of Nick Hornby which leads me to believe that obsessions are a necessary part of life. Unfortunately, I happen to know that when he wrote his most famous odes to obsession: High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, and About a Boy, Hornby was a functioning madman. I've read all three of these works in the past month as part of my grief abatement program, so as a somewhat functioning obsessive, I know of which I speak.
But let's go back to songs that grab you this time focusing on the better aspects of that phenomenon. When I hear Paul Simon I can remember the sound of my mother's record spinning in our living room. I remember rapping along with my classmates to "La-di-da-di, we like to party. We don't cause trouble; we don't bother nobody." I remember stopping what I was doing in Germany to find out who Lisa Stansfield was in 1990. I remember the first time I heard the voice of Roger Carroll, a talented local singer and saxman.
And I remember when emusic offered me a free song that they thought I might like based on previous downloads. Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of these things knows that they are hit or mostly miss. If you followed the four hyperlinks of the previous paragraph you can imagine what the iTunes genius and programs of its ilk are up against when they have to guess what I am going to like. I downloaded warily.
The song was "Crazy" by Whitey Morgan and the 78's. After a few weeks of listening to that song more and more, I downloaded three more songs by this band. Within a month I had downloaded the whole album in this day and age when whole album commitment is either a sign of abundant wealth or maniacal obsession. For me it was the latter.
Since I had become fanatical about this Flint, Michigan Honky Tonk band I decided to take the next step: I wrote a fan letter. I asked them when they thought they would get this way. That probably would have been the end of it except soon after I sent the letter I found out that they had been this way and had performed at a small place with no promotion. I sent a quick PS saying "XXXXX?!? You played at XXXXX? That's like booking George Jones at the Krispy Kreme. Look, if we can lure you back to Richmond, my friends and I will come out to party with you and we'll feed you a big ole' Southern meal at my place before the gig."
18 months later Whitey Morgan and the 78's will be playing this Saturday at the Playing Field at 7801 West Broad St. right here in river city. It didn't hurt that the booking guru at the Playing Field also contacted them. Also helpful was that the pedal steel player for Richmond's own The Chiggers, another band I love, contacted them and asked (and were subsequently invited) to open. And then their record company was nice enough to send them out on tour - it was all meant to be.
Some think that my over-the-top enthusiasm for music is a sign of a stunted maturity. I say that if maturity is keeping your ass on a comfortable couch and watching whatever pathetic pablum American TV broadcasting has coughed up this week instead of kicking up your heels on a dance floor with people who are talented and drove 667 miles to party with you... then you are damn skippy I am immature. I also think being able to gush and effuse about a band I've never met, never heard live, and yet am as excited as if those four bowl haircuts just stepped off the plane at Kennedy in 1964; well, that just makes me damn lucky in this life. I think it could be worse. I could obsessively hyperlink. Oh, wait...
Speaking of obsessions, I am embarking on my 5th trip to the Gulf Coast to rebuild houses. Between working in the ninth ward on construction, eating gumbo, and listening to live music I doubt I will have time to be blogging. That's a shame because I am doing my annual pilgrimage to the National Funeral Directors Association Convention at the end of the trip and I know how y'all love my blogging from that event. You can wish me a bon voyage Saturday night because as soon as Whitey says "Thank you, Richmond!" and turns off the amp, my driving buddy and I hit the road to NOLA.
Thanks for reading when you could have been web surfing for bands. Word to your mama.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The past, the soccer, the evil within, and at the end: boobies
My earliest memory is of potty training. My parents are both in a very small apartment bathroom encouraging me in sweet "you can do it, little one!" voices. I am on the toilet and scared. Then I am in the toilet, wet, and scared. And can you guess what my beloved parents did in the face of this scarring tragedy of their only child?
Those peckerwoods laughed their tails off. I was furious at the two of them trying not to laugh and tears streaming down their faces as they coughed out, "It's okay, baby" between fits of giggles. I may have only been two, but righteous indignation was an instinct.
In those earliest memories my mother and I both learned lessons we have used the rest of our lives. For Mama it was: you can be adored by many, but you will have to dance your sweet fanny off to keep their attention. For me it was: they are going to laugh at you no matter what, learn to like it. (My lesson was closely followed by a fear of water and of falling. Mama has an aversion to lace trimmed panties and tap shoes. But that's another story.)
I share my first remembered life lesson to goad myself into sharing yet another humiliating story about myself: why I am not allowed to follow sports. This is on my mind for two reasons. First, I am immersed in Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, an engaging look at his decades long obsession with the English soccer team, Arsenal. Second, I am off in less than two weeks on my fifth trip to the Gulf Coast to rebuild after Katrina. This time I will be working in the 9th Ward of New Orleans and am finding the lure of Saints football to be almost overwhelming.
It may come as a surprise that in the marital rules by which my long-suffering spouse and I have lived for almost twenty years, there is a provision that restricts me from observing any sporting events other than German World Cup matches, the Super Bowl, and the occasional UVA basketball game. I can do an annual live baseball or soccer game only because in person I always find a crowd and our squirmy kids far more attention grabbing than the sport itself.
I will save the long version of my sordid sportsfan past for my memoirs. Let's just say that I have an ugly side that reared its head twice in the early nineties following a season of abysmal Raiders football and another of spectacular but ultimately soul obliterating Knicks basketball. After these seasons he enacted the draconian law that I am not allowed to follow a team for a full season. It is the only marital law he has ever enacted. The rest are requests, strong suggestions, and a wish list.
I have only been able to stop scowling and begin to laugh about this 17 year law for about... um... three... months. But in the spirit of dunking one's bottom in icy water and grinning, and seeing as how football mania is under way, I am sharing my struggle here.
I can very easily put the fanatic in fan. I have all the attributes: a long attention span, loyal affection, quick to forgive (although not at the end of the season). I am willing to alter my schedule for things I care about. I enjoy dressing in costumes. I like beer. Most of my friends are dudes.
These are the gifts I long to bring to the New Orleans Saints and possibly, through the miracles of the internet, Bayern Munich's soccer team. To the latter I also bring a gift of being able to mutter curses and shriek in glee in the German language.
Unfortunately, following sports even if allowed is pretty miserable for me because I become enmeshed. Ask my friends with whom I watched the World Cup this year. For the matches televised only on cable I arrived at their homes quiet and antsy. I failed at polite small talk. I barely spoke for the duration of the game unless it was in German directed at the TV. I was wearing German themed athletic gear. (And to think, I wasn't laughing at that point?!?) I exhibited a variety of nervous tics including sitting ramrod straight, holding my breath, and wringing my hands. God bless my friends. They laughed openly at me and let me drink their beer.
I handled it pretty well in the beginning. I mean who can't chuckle and enjoy the day when mopping the floor with Australia or cleaning the toilet with the jerseys of England? But there was never a point in Germany's meteoric rise through the tournament when I felt safe. After all, the pre-tournament talk was about France, the Africans, the South Americans, most anyone other than Germany's "young" team.
Like any good fan, I was wrapped up in the skills and failings of the players. I had fallen for the Polish powerhouses of Klose and Podolski four years earlier and was expecting good things from them. I had no hope for the newbie goalie, the aptly named Neuer, but was pleasantly surprised and soon gave him the pet name of the big Banana. It helped that I don't trust pretty men and thus had never been under the sway of former captain Ballack, so I was able to ignore the constant prattle that the team would be lost without him. (Is this talk creeping you out yet? It always stuns my family. I normally save this kind of detail for death, obscure theology, poetry, and rock and roll. Obsessive analysis of a sports team by yours truly is my equivalent of a sudden understanding of calculus.)
I could go on but I wouldn't want you to faint, so let me move on to my anxiety which reached its pinnacle in the days leading up to and including Germany's penultimate game that booted them from the final.
I was on pins and needles all week. I replayed the previous games in my mind. I followed World Cup news through a variety of apps and in three languages on my phone. I talked smack to Spain fans. I was so tense I didn't sleep well the night before. During the match itself I became increasingly unhinged as they were deftly over-powered by Spain. It has taken all these months to be able to stutter out that compliment to the World Champions.
But here is the best part. For that game I was in a van with my undertaker buddy and our kids on the way to South Carolina for his brother's wedding. In best-friend-enabling fashion he had let me watch as much as I could on his TV before we hit the road. Then we tuned in on some iffy radio stations. When those blitzed out another buddy... are you ready for this? ... gave me play by play analysis in a series of 90 some emails that I followed like a crazy woman on my phone.
When the game ended with Germany's loss I was green with carsickness and disappointment. In commentator buddy's last email he apologised to me and offered condolences on my loss. This from a man who probably gave himself acute carpal tunnel typing things like "Spain's striker rushes but Big Banana blocks it" for the better part of two hours. The undertaker held my hand and gave me his best undertaker comfort talk, while driving 75 miles an hour with the kids yakking away in the back in 95 degree heat. And folks, neither of these guys are German soccer fans.
It has taken me almost three months since the World Cup to realize why I am not allowed to follow sports and to laugh at long last on the marital moratorium: I am a sports menace. I have a natural ability to get people to jump in on my plans and in the sporting world this is called "inciting hooliganism."
"Hey y'all - let's go do karaoke even though only one of us sings and we all have stage fright." And the gang says, OK!
"If I lead a church will you come, even though you say you aren't religious and churches freak you out?" And the crew says, Sure, why not?
These are endearing and admirable traits when used for the good of humanity and honky tonk bands. (October 2, 8 o'clock, the Playing Field on Richmond's Broad Street. Be there and wear your dancing shoes.) But something about sports turns me into the Rasputin of the arena. Suddenly good, innocent people find themselves in bad places letting me act like an ass and bending to my fanatical will.
It is for YOUR OWN GOOD that I not be allowed to become a Saints devotee. If I were to follow the Saints this year, chances are some of my devoted readers would wake up in mid-winter with a giant Fleur de Lis tattooed on their backsides wondering how the hell that happened. At least one of you would be injured in a gumbo related accident. Far too many of you would be wearing feathers and flashing your chests come Mardi Gras. Mayhem would ensue and, should they start losing, quite possibly riots.
In the very best scenario I drink your beer and you have to email me play by play updates while I am at the opera. I just can't do that to you. So there you have it. My dark secret. My evil within.
But I know you did not read all this way for that. For my faithful readers who send me such sweet, supportive mail: boobies.
I was prodded, scanned, zapped, felt up, and squeezed by trained professionals and their high tech machines. Three well-educated medical specialists and two very expensive machines confirmed my high opinion of my faithful breasts. They are disease free. The diagnosis was another refrain of a mantra of my life: the problem is just another side effect from the nasty medicines I take.
Don't forget to get your mammograms! Save the ta tas and all that.
Thank you for reading. It keeps me from watching sports.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
It is Not Like I Sprouted A Penis
I talked to my beloved Dr. today. I had self-diagnosed myself with strep throat because I am brilliant that way. And by " brilliant that way" I mean that I have no idea what I am talking about.
I do not have strep throat. I have thrush again from the nasty medicines I take. And I have a lump in my breast because I do not know the difference between a swollen lymph node and a boobie bump. Brilliant that way.
So anyway, the Dr. and I were chatting about my other condition, grief zombietude (see previous post), when he asked me what my family and friends had to say on the subject. So I told him.
And he said, "How do you know?"
And I said, "Because I asked them, 'Just how much of a psycho-bitch am I right now?' "
And the Dr.'s jaw dropped. "You just asked them?"
But of course. How am I going to know if I don't ask?
This brings me back to my worldview and blog focus that people should talk about things. Mouths are good for eating, drinking, and breathing. Voices are good for yelling "HELP!" and singing along with Prince. Brains are good for eating. (Little zombie joke there.) Brains are good for everything.
Put a mouth, a voice, and brains together and you have someone who can talk which is a never-ending miracle unless they are talking about the MTV awards, Hollywood infidelity or are the Pope. (Secularism has made the UK a third world country?!? Nazis and atheism?!? He needs to have his potassium checked. Trust me. I'm brilliant that way.)
I've had concerned emails and calls today from the lovely tribe I call my friends about my blog post yesterday. Several of them are considerably more private than I am about their feelings and are a wee bit concerned that I would share such "intimate" details of my life. We have very different perspectives on this.
In review, people tell me stuff. All kinds of stuff. Stuff they don't tell just anyone. And most people tell me these things almost immediately after meeting me. After salsa dancing with a girlfriend I listened to the divorce and parenting woes of the man (a stranger) on the next barstool. My waiters share their money problems. My paper carrier and I have become blood sisters. I have never flown anywhere without hearing at least one deeply held secret from someone.
I think people tell me stuff because a) I don't mind a bit, b) I find people interesting, c) I encourage them because I think it makes them feel better and I always learn more about human nature, and d) I don't carry people's secrets around like they are secrets. I remember some. I forget most of them. If I see the person again, I treat them like I always have.
And this is what I have learned: secrets are just no big deal 95% of the time. They are usually just emotions that got housed in the wrong place and some strange occurrence resulted from the misfiling. Why should your pain be a secret? Why should your confusion be a secret? We all have these issues with love, grief, mortality, our bodies, and fear. No one is in a place to judge anyone else on these things.
So why wouldn't I confess to being a grief zombie? I've known lots of grief zombies. They were perfectly nice people. Why wouldn't I confront my co-workers on my level of bitchitude, more so since one is my husband and the other my best friend. Why wouldn't I talk publicly about suicide loss? It hurts. It sucks. And tons of people get it from a variety of angles. More importantly, I get it better now that I copped to it publicly. My willingness to talk about it has made lots of great people tell me their stories and I feel connected in new ways to old friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. This isn't "intimate". This is just life.
Not that I don't need help.
I called a new friend this afternoon because he'd sent the grief zombie a sweet message and I had then tried to put the toaster in the refrigerator. I don't know what the connection was and it turns out neither did he.
I called my blogging buddy Lizard Eater because I think this mammogram will probably hurt what with the lymph/boobie bump and all. She has more cancer experience than anyone should and we agreed that this is not a cancer scare. I may be brilliant that way but she actually knows a thing or two.
I read an email from a friend who became a close friend after I admitted on this blog to putting my dress on backwards, dropping my pants by accident in public, and making my own underwear. He has more Grief Abatement ideas a-brewing. Clothing will be firmly in place.
And somewhere along the way I explained that talking about these things for me is not intimate. Then I blurted, "It is not like I sprouted a penis." Since that is one of the funnier things I've said lately, I do believe I struck a blow against grief zombie-tude.
Rock on witcho' bad selves. Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Long Wait
People have been so kind to me. I call them the Grief Abatement Patrol. They have taken me to movies, to the musem, cleaned up my yard, brought me food, taken me to karaoke, given me hugs, sent cards, cuddled my children, called, stopped by, even made me some mix CD's. It is really, really nice. But I am having trouble remembering it, absorbing it, showing my gratitude. I think something inside me died this go round and all that is left is a shell.
I have become a grief zombie. Zombies are no good at thank you notes.
It is hard to write accurately what it feels like to be a grief zombie because the core of my zombie life is not having feelings. I say I try not to think about it, but what I mean is that when thoughts of sadness start floating in an emotionless voice says, "Not yet." It is not conscious so much as zombie survival instinct kicking in. I can no more will myself to feel, to not feel, or to concentrate than I can will myself to cry.
I used to see zombies like me all the time when I did grief counseling for a living. It was always a creepy thing to watch from the outside. The grief zombies I worked with never knew they were zombies. They thought they weren't upset. They thought they were handling their loss surprisingly well. They thought that they kept forgetting things and losing stuff because of some medication they were on. They never ever thought that their emotions were now undead: not functioning as alive, not yet dead.
The grief zombies were some of my toughest cases. They refused help. They had car accidents and fell down stairs. They lost interest in the usual joys of life. They tended to become ill, some of them terminally. And still, they did not know they were zombies.
So, I guess it is a good thing to know. Knowing I'm a grief zombie allows me to make a blog post to help explain why people aren't getting thank you cards or may get them in November. It means I don't have to worry about a Halloween costume. It takes the pressure off at meal time - I'm not hungry and no longer interested in food not because I am sick... I am just undead. And best of all, I can joke about it, because if I can laugh I can cry.
Speaking of crying, I have been able to cry twice in the past two weeks. Since we are in the middle of the High Holy days I have gone to some Jewish services. And I have managed to cry during the Mourner's Kaddish. It just sneaks in. I guess zombies can speak Hebrew.
If I were my grief counselor I would say, "Keep going, Zombie Girl. It takes awhile. If you cry at Shabbat services and no other time... go to Shabbat services. There is something in you that is trying to get out. You will come back to life but you need to give it time. Sometimes it is a Long Wait."
Zombie Girl Me would then tell Grief Counselor Me to shove some things where the sun don't shine and then have a "Long Wait" before getting them removed. Just because I am undead does not mean that I've lost my sass. I've lost my thank you cards, the stamps, some of my passwords, my allergy medicine, some bills, many shoes, my appetite, half a dozen partially read books, and my coherence.
But I got my Hebrew, my Grief Abatement Patrol, and my sass.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Back in the Valley of Shadows
Last week my erudite, generous, beyond energetic, gentle uncle decided that he had nothing to offer the world and so he left us. He was a Princeton man, did a Fulbright in Rome, had a PhD, loved opera, was interested in church history and theology, was brilliant on Shakespeare, drove people around who couldn't drive themselves, and was kinder to my children than you can imagine. He was a teacher in profession and in calling. He was steadfast in his support of me personally and professionally. And now he is gone and for all the wrong reasons.
His death came one year and four days after my aunt (no relation to him) took her own life.
His death is like an earthquake in our family. In just a few moments everything looks different; there is no stability, and three generations of us no longer feel safe. There is no "getting used to" suicide. There is no "better suicide" than another. It is all a nightmare, but each a different nightmare than the other.
In the years since I have had this blog, my parents have fought cancer and a coma, my last two grandmothers died, even my dogs died. I have tried to understand my own health problems (considerable to the average healthy person, absolutely nothing in light of this week) that limit my ability to live as I would like. I have waited for test results with my friend Lizard Eater and a buddy Undertaker. I now pray for another one of my hero buddies as she enters into another fight against her own cancer.
Through it all my goal has been to be honest and open about grief and loss. I wanted to pull back the veil on some parts of death and dying so it was less terrifying for people. I have shared my worldview that not only is life still funny when you pay attention to death, sometimes it is funnier. My thought has always been: maybe if we talk about it, it will help.
But I am run down to the ground on this one.
My uncle left me a package. It included a long letter and a bag of items. The letter was his instructions for his funeral, his asking for me to perform it, and some suggestions for what I might include. The package included some of the items he mentioned in the letter - photos and notes mostly.
It would appear that in all my comfort concerning death, all of my talk about pre-planning, all of my suggestions for finding meaning at the end of life... my uncle had listened very carefully. Too carefully and I am left with the realization that I never said the most important things.
I never said: if you are physically healthy but wanting to die, something is very wrong. Yell for help, and when help does not arrive start sprinting for help, and when you can't find it scream for directions.
I never said: all the pre-planning in the world is not helpful when you hand it over to your own brothers, your own niece, your dear friends after your unexpected and fully intentional death.
I never said: LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! If life has lost its siren call to survival before anything threatens your physical well-being, treat your mind like a body with cancer and fight for life.
I know that this was his struggle not mine. I know that his choices were set in granite a long time ago. I know because he said so in what he left behind. I know that my words could not have changed his mind.
But my heart does not believe as I look over the meticulous plans done to the very letter of how I have taught people for a decade to plan. He did everything I asked. I just wish I had asked him to live.
So I post again in the face of very personal and deep pain because every time I come out as a survivor of suicide loss, I meet more people who have walked this road with no more ease than I. I share my selfish feelings that resist the lessons of my psychological training because that's just how I feel. It may not be "right" but it is true. Our feelings rarely behave in times of grief and I am not going to compound the pain by shaming myself for how I feel.
If I want to dream that something could have made him save himself, who would be so cruel to take that little dream away from me? I don't plan to build any structures on that foundation and it isn't hurting him, that's for sure.
And I share, most of all, because there has been a stunned silence in the wake of my uncle's death. "How can one family have so much loss?" "What do you say in the face of compounded suffering?"
I don't know. Unlike Job, I don't even have a theory. But like Job, I feel judged, blamed, avoided, pitied, feared, misunderstood, fussy and really damn weary.
As for my family, we are all putting one foot in front of the other, getting through each day as best we can, trying to keep talking to each other gently but honestly. We are hugging the children a little too tightly and saying "I love you" more. We are fussing over stupid stuff and apologizing. We don't know what we had for dinner any day since last Wednesday. Our cell phone minutes are all used up. We don't sleep well.
Day after day we do this because there is only one road through grief and it is THROUGH it. Not over, under, or around it. The only way out is through. We aren't courageous, just reasonable.
And we will all get up tomorrow and see what that day brings. Some days we cry. Some days we are angry. Some days we are sick to our stomachs. But one day it will be better than this. So we keep walking through it all toward that inevitable auspicious dawn.
You'd do the same. That was always the lesson of Job to me: you'd do the same.
Friday, August 06, 2010
A Room of One's Own
If I had a room of my own, I'd just fill it with all those boxes of crap in my attic that I haven't taken to the thrift store. In fact, I had a room of my own. It was my sewing corner. It is now full of clothes to mend, sweaters looking for a summer home, the children's art supplies and another pile of things that I don't have the energy to throw away. I'm no longer sentimental, I'm just really damn tired.
I also had a car of my own. It looks like my children got some weird chewing disease and ground through our belongings leaving nothing but shreds, crumbs, and my blotted lipstick prints. My car has become a possum den on wheels. That is not to say that I don't sometimes get in it and drive nowhere in particular just to feel quiet and alone, as much as that is possible with Ben Nichols hollerin' at me on the hifi and that infernal honkin' sound behind me at stoplights.
My grandmother bequested a man chair to my husband which quickly became a chair of my own. Just last night I wasted some hours and sanity I can never recover on that chair watching "Sin City". Does any movie ever need that many severed heads? In addition to causing me to make questionable choices of cinematic "entertainment" that chair also gives me a neck ache and I have to fuss with the children to sit in it so it is not the throne of my calm. (Hopefully all men reading this are toasting my poor seatless husband at this point because no matter who is blogging it: that man never gets that seat.)
I gave up on the bathroom as the room of my own when the children arrived. As Mom, I am the one person everyone is allowed to interrupt in the bathroom. How did I become the least interesting naked person in the house? Sometimes I forget that I am allowed some privacy and just leave the door open so I can skip the process of screeching, banging and sudden entry most favored by my 5 year old. Today two of my buddies pulled shower shifts in there due to a power outage in Southside and the DIY renovation of a bathroom in Carytown. These are my drinking buddies so I have this dreadful feeling that when I take my shower limericks are going to appear on the mirror and walls as soon as they steam up.
There was a brief and wonderful period when the kitchen was all mine. I picked everything out for its renovation and personally rode herd on the construction crew whom I also picked. The light strip now needs replacing, the floor needs a moppin', the fridge needs a scrubbin, and I feel like Loretta Lynn every time I go in there. Plus both those dudes who used my shower today cook better than I do so I've lost my will to excel in that joint. It has become a place to put the cereal box and the dog bowls.
So I whine and pout about not having a room of my own and then I have a day like today. This morning I toured a shelter for people trying to rebuild their lives. They live in 6 by 8 foot cubicles for a year. For lunch I visited a new friend and broke the bad news that she needs to convert her lovely sitting area of her beautiful historic home to a hospital room for her mother. I then came home and joyfully played hostess to the friends needing showers and the friend coming to get his dog we've been babysitting for a week. And when they all left, I truly missed them and wished they'd all come back.
Now I sit at the dining room table trying to blog and have been interrupted countless times by phones and texts, yelling and hungry children, sneezing dogs, and various reminders of the countless undone chores. And I am gateful for a big heart with room enough for all of this and more.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
When Outfits Attack
I have had so many humiliating moments lately that I decided for the sake of sanity and brevity to share only one category today. And the winner is: sartorial humiliation.
(Warning: this post is not a great one for men, my mother, the easily embarrassed, or anyone with a shred of personal dignity. If you have given birth, breast fed in public, been employed as a health care worker, or would rather laugh at me than realize you've been wasting your life on sudoku and bad television then this is the post for you.)
First Episode: Clothing Confusion
I arrived at work two weeks ago feeling well-rested and enthusiastic. As my boss is also my husband I figured he'd be doubly pleased to be in my ebullient presence. I practiced being a happy morning person on the children and the other parents delivering their kids to school. I assumed that the surprised smiles on the parents were affirmations that people love cheerful and energetic. What a stupid ninny I am.
At work I bounded up the stairs, merrily opened the door to the office, and called out in my best Debbie Reynolds impression, "Good Mornin'!" The boss was out. Our best friend, co-worker, and chief heckler was in. "What happened to you?" he muttered. Not the reaction I was hoping for.
"Good night's sleep I guess," and in an attempt to remain positive I launched into some of the many hopes I had for the day ahead that I had been considering on the way to work. I was coming to the end of my list and wrapping up with an expansive arm gesture when I felt a breeze that no woman ever wants to feel suddenly at work.
For want of a better term, I'll call it a nippular breeze.
With my arms still spread wide I looked down to blessedly NOT see my own nipple. What I did see was both explanatory and briefly more perplexing.
The source of the nippular breeze was a strange gap in my dress at the cleavage. The gap was caused by a stiff piece of fabric known in some circles as a tag. This fabric looked suspiciously like the tag in the back of the dress but I wondered, who puts a tag in the... front of... oh NO! With a trail of decidedly un-cheerful expletives behind me, I dashed into the bathroom, took off my dress, and turned it right way round with the last of my energy for the day.
Upon returning red-faced and discouraged to the office lobby the heckler said, "Don't worry. You didn't flash me. It was just hanging in a way that made your butt look huge." How very comforting.
I eventually confessed to this morning horror on Facebook hoping for some, "I do that all the time" comments. Instead many friends ruptured appendixes and gallbladders as well as spitting perfectly good coffee out their sinuses guffawing at my expense. Oddly, I still felt better.
Oh, if only that were my sole tale of clothing woe...
My lifelong friend turned 40 last week and was planning a great big night of: nothing. I kidnapped her for a full schedule of fine dining and crazy karaoke wearing her favorite color in a pair of pants that I made at least 6 years ago. I have only worn these pants a few times because they are quite dramatic. They are essentially wrap-around pants and a stiff breeze can show an acre of thigh. I was well prepared for this and wore a blouse that was rather long for some coverage, while being attentive when I sat down to keep the side vents closed.
If only I had been more attentive to the ties.
Anyone who has ever worn anything wrap-around knows that the ties are crucial. In these pants the front tie is particularly important. Why anyone would put a crucial tie in the front where it can be sneakily undone by a seat belt on the twenty minute ride to the birthday girl's house so that when a person gets out of the car the entire back of the pants falls to the ground leaving a person standing with a two yard long apron in the front and causing a shocking breeze that for want of a better term can only be described as an assular breeze in the back... is beyond me.
When that cool assular breeze blew past my behind I screamed like I had been shot. I sat down very fast but I couldn't stop laughing and tears were running down my face, so my daughter and friend panicked thinking I was having some sort of a fit.
As I tried in vain to communicate my predicament, all I could think of was that I was wearing a pair of back-of-the-drawer underwear. They reside there because the pattern on them is so loud they can be heard even under denim. They are the vuvuzela of panties and here I had just flashed half her apartment complex with them.
My friend swears no one saw, but I think my daughter had temporary partial blindness and I know that the security cameras, some satellites, and the man on the other moon caught it.
Final Episode: Making One's Own Mayhem
For our final vignette of the day I will share with you some sartorial humiliation in the making.
Because I am demented (it really is the only possible explanation) I have decided to make my own underwear. This idea came to me at an outdoor concert where my store bought undergarments were not cooperating with the rest of my outfit. Enough said on that. Use your imagination. (Oh, now she gets discreet.)
At that uncomfortable concert I thought, "Pants, blouses, jackets and shoes don't fit me... why should I expect underwear to fit me? I make some of my own clothes. I should make my own undies."
Thinking just like this is how the world ended up with toxic waste, nasty fast-food, and bad TV.
If only I hadn't gone through with it, but after much consternation, very little research, and some pre-sewing bragging... I made me some underwear this afternoon.
I am wearing this article of clothing... RIGHT NOW and I am about to get in the car for a 90 minute drive. Say what you will, but I question if anyone at Exxon, BP or Three Mile Island could possibly be as stupid as I am. This is a disaster in the making.
Did I mention that I did not use a pattern? I just took another pair of underwear from the drawer (front of the drawer this time) and cut fabric around it.
Did I mention that I did not use elastic? Elastic seems to be the source of my woes in other undergarments so I decided to skip it. I wonder why they even put elastic in panties? I bet I'll know the answer to that question by the end of the day.
Did I mention that I don't own a serger? All the sewers reading this just passed out on the floor. For those of you still conscious, making women's undies without elastic or a serger is like building a house without anything sharp and nothing to pound stuff with. A person might could still get away with it if a person had a pattern… oops.
Did I mention that I got front and back, inside and outside all confused? With the right combination of those mistakes everything could work out. You already know that I did not get the right combination, don’t you?
Did I mention that I tried to take a picture with my phone of the article in question on the behind in question and that was almost more humiliating than every other story I have told today? My thinking on this was that with a picture I could see what they looked like, because having not gotten into a car yet, they feel just fine. The good news – the photos were all blurry and are all deleted. The bad news – turns out that patterns are very, very important and that every warning you have ever heard about stripes is true.
In case you have not formed a full visual yet, there I am in the middle of the afternoon standing in my kitchen squinting at a blurry picture of my fanny crookedly clad in a pair of undies that may be on backwards and are definitely inside out when I hear the voice of Stevie Nicks singing "Landslide" in my head. I start humming along as I scroll then delete. Scroll, squint, gasp in shock, delete.
"If you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills, the landslide will bring it down..."
Lovely tune. That's when it hits me: these panties make my behind look like a landslide took out my right cheek. No amount of hitching seems to put that snow covered hill back together again. Oh heavens. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
For those of you looking for the big spiritual meaning in all of this, I'm with you. At the most obvious, I need a tailor. More subtle are the lessons I have yet to learn. Perhaps today, particularly in the next 90 minutes, I am going to learn essential life and sewing lessons, all of which should decrease future embarrassments of aging. Maybe by sharing these humiliations I am becoming a wiser person.
One thing I know for sure, should I end up in an ER today, somebody is in for quite a surprise.
"Doctor, we don't know what happened to her but some sort of disaster has befallen her britches."
No dignity. No dignity at all.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
In the Company of Dudes
Exhibit A: Today I opened up a sleeve of Thin Mints. I called out to Ink Dude in the back office, "Yo, Ink - you want a Thin Mint?" He did not respond. Before I became That Chick I would have gotten up and walked (Thin Mints in hand) to the back office to offer again. Instead That Chick muttered, "No response, no cookies."
Exhibit B: Last week I used an expression the boys taught me in a conversation with one of their male friends. Let's say the operative word I used was "Weltmeisterschaft".
That Chick: You know he is all Weltmeisterschaft.
The Friend: Ack! (He kind of squeaked like a mouse.)
That Chick: What? You're a musician. You know I'm right. He's got Weltmeisterschaft written all over him.
The Friend: Okay. Whatever. I'll agree as long as I never have to hear you say that word again.
That Chick: Huh? You mean Weltmei...
The Friend: Ack! (And he ran away.)
Exhibit C: I held a staff meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss toilet cleaning responsibilities, the lack of non-alcoholic beverages in the office refrigerators, and the office sexual harrassment policy. The jokes those boys made about the agenda were unrepeatable. By the end of the meeting Ink had cleaned the toilet but nothing else had been decided and I was laughing too hard to care.
Exhibit D: Speaking of Weltmeisterschaft, that's how the Germans talk about the World Cup. That Chick wants to buy a TV for the office so she can watch her team (Deutschland, of course) when they play. That Chick is all down in the mouth because her team is not looking good this year. That Chick has choice words in several languages that are not fit for polite ears when she thinks of her team not placing in the final three this year. That Chick says fussy things to her co-workers regarding sports apps on her droid. I read over that list and all I can think is, "Who is this woman? Sports... apps... on her... droid???"
I have always thought that gender differences were overblown in our society. I thought that "masculine" and "feminine" were cultural constructs with often nefarious power implications. I never felt like I fit in with the extremes on either end of the spectrum. Yeah, I sew, cook, and do crafts with the kids but I like philosophy and sci-fi, homebrew and barbecue. It all seemed to end up being a kind of gender neutral collection of interests shared by both men and women. Until I worked with all dudes. Now I am either "the girl" of the office which is a role I have NEVER coveted or I am That Chick who runs with the big dogs rather than stay on the porch.
Don't get me wrong. I truly work with three of the nicest guys I have ever known. They are smart, funny, responsible, loving Dads. They are serious about their work and they work hard. They have been incredibly patient with my office music choices which range from jazz to bluegrass, alt-country to hip hop, Sinatra to Snoop Dogg to Springsteen and back again. But put them together and throw me in the room and we become Three Dudes and That Chick.
I am not in full feminine crisis mode yet, but the day is nearing. When I give one of the boys a "Good Game" bum smack and belch out loud I'm checking myself into testosterone rehab: a quilting convention.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
June 6 - Libby Booth Was Born
This is the eve before my aunt Libby's birthday. I love birthdays. Can't remember them to save my life, but I love them. Reason #5 for having a large percentage of male friends - most of them don't remember birthdays either and are thrilled when you buy a round to celebrate theirs even if it is 6 weeks late.
I would not have remembered that Libby's birthday was tomorrow. My mom told me today. She is the oldest sibling and not only remembers birthdays, but has all those other responsible, thoughtful habits that are the hallmark of so many firstborn.
My aunt was many things but responsible was a little lower on her list, let's say. But she had many other fine qualities including a great laugh, a green thumb, an eye for design, a flair for theatrics, and the most beautiful eyes in a family full of beautiful eyes. She loved animals. All of them. She loved Jackson Browne and the Allman Brothers, and dancing. She loved Mardi Gras and Halloween. And she was alive for her birthday last year but is not this year.
I am envying the emotionally distant folks of this world because I imagine them handling something like this pretty easily: the anniversary of the birth of a unique and flamboyant life ended too soon by her own hand. I like to think that this imaginary "they" do all kinds of things in the face of something like this. They play golf. They watch TV. They don't think about it. They don't regret. They don't wish for time machines or amnesia or to wake up and it will all have been a dream. They sure as hell don't blog about it.
I don't eat fire. I am afraid of heights. If I know you more than a day, chances are I'll get emotionally attached to you. And the anniversary of my aunt's birth makes me so sad I don't even know what to do with it. In writing this I am not looking for pity, or comfort, or solace. As I keep looking at the clock waiting for it to be midnight so her birthday will start and we can be closer to it ending I just think... I am not alone.
My mother remembers her sister's birth and has two other siblings who will be trying to get through tomorrow, too. My aunt grew up with twins who remember her birthday like they remember their own. Libby was their "third twin." I inherited the twins in the will Libby did not have. They keep her alive for me. I keep her alive for them. There's Libby's son, her step-daughters, her friends, her neighbors, her husband. Everyone has to deal with tomorrow and the realization that her birthday this year has become something we all "have to deal with".
I have several friends and other family who carry the weight of being recent survivors of suicide loss. Tomorrow may not be their day of lost promise, but they know what I mean. I stopped crying and feeling anxious and wrote this for them. Nobody else seems to be talking about the way it feels when someone you love kills herself and then her birthday comes ten months later and you feel so strange and extra sad. I think it translates to other traumatic deaths and the grief of those survivors, too. I think. I know for sure that there are some losses that make other people afraid to talk to you and this is a big one.
The pain of love lost is dreadful but when I imagine my world without ever having Libby in it, that feels much worse. Maybe next June 6 I'll know what to do with myself. Maybe next year I'll have some emotional distance. What I hope is that next year when my mother reminds me that it is the day before Libby's birthday, I can think about more birthday kind of things in Libby's honor and less funeral thoughts.
More Mardi Gras less Maundy Thursday.
More beer less tears. (She'd find that one extra funny.)
May those who were unable to die at peace, rest in peace. May those of us left behind know peace, too.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Cheerful Survival
I then started to wonder where I could get some of that. I want to be a cheerful survivor. I'm very good at gallows humor, gutting it through, and empathy but I want to work on my cheerful survivor chops. I want to have the chutzpah to relax into the turbulence instead of thrashing determinedly.
This is becoming more important to me now that the life of a survivor of suicide loss is less of a postcard I look at wondering who on earth would have mistakenly sent it to me and more of a package I unwillingly carry around because I don't know where to put it. I found myself thinking the other night that through a strange series of connections, addictions, and errors, my aunt's death is one of the late casualties of the Vietnam war. "If there were no such thing as agent orange then..." This is fruitless thinking. It heals me not a jot. (And ain't auspicious!)
I follow a similar fruitless line of thinking on my grandmother's sadness. "If her mother had not died so young..." I think, and then I imagine this line of history threading from the 1930's to today where everything would have been different. This is regret, not optimism. This line of thinking fails to take into account the innumerable blessings in the lives of we, her descendants, that come from that flawed line which connects the young mother who died suddenly in rural Virginia to my giggling children running about acting like Bengal tigers 80 years later.
If there's any lesson from my grandmother's travails, or my aunt's suicide, it is the Shucker's lesson. We are going to be alright. We may need to put some blinders on to the woes of the world for awhile, but we will survive.
Today when I am overcome by the empty awful feeling of no going back that comes with grief; today when I heard my aunt's beloved Jackson Browne haunting me through the radio; today as more bad news comes about the Shucker's homeland I try on the weight of the cheerful survivor. If misery changes the world I see, I can have some control on how blurry or defined the picture is, can't I?
Sap is Rising
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Fire the Editor
In other words, I am living a normal social life for an extrovert who took the road less travelled 15 years ago and discovered it led to a place devoid of life beyond work so got a helicopter to pick her up in a meadow and airlift her tail back to the real world so she could try again.
But I have not blogged. And I did have one little slip into old bad habits. I preached a sermon. At least I think I did. It happened pretty quickly and was followed by eating at a friend's house and going to a music festival so I might not have. If I did preach, it was on the ideas of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, Christian Arnsperger and a naked Alan Greenspan and how they could all use a little gleeful hope in their lives. And if I preached, one thing is for sure: the music was awesome.
I will go back to the cutting room to see if anything can be salvaged from those earlier posts. Thanks for the pants kick from my fans. Always nice to know that someone is reading.
Hope to see you all on a dance floor somewhere soon.