Fiction-y Memoir: Turqoise Light (reworked from 2003)

We were eighteen…just turned.

Turquoise light from a digital clock shined 1:42 a.m. throughout the warmish bedroom, creating a sense of the unreal. I was going to be in trouble, but I’d stuffed the notion of a curfew into the pocket of my denim jeans which lay crumpled near the door. The dreamy hue splashed the walls, skimmed the musty carpet, and lit up my lover’s rapturous expression.

“I love you,” he murmured as he peered into my brown eyes, his fingers buried deep in my black hair.

A cassette on a cheap stereo played the same songs over and over again, tunes by one of those short-lived new age groups about urban confusion and human obsession. The bed coverings had been worked over, twisting snake-like around us. I remember our mouths being connected throughout the climactic moments of our tryst and thinking I’d die if I didn’t breathe. I didn’t care – I was in love.

“My god, what’s wrong with me? I don’t want to stop doing this to you—I can’t stop.”

“It’s love,” I said.

“Forever.”

“Love-ly.”

“Don’t talk…”

When the coupling ended, I lied about being finished. I wanted more, I needed more. He complied. After, we lay spread-eagled on the bed, spent, staring at each other with fingers intertwined.

“I’m so dead. They’ll be wrecked at what their virginal daughter has done to their pristine reputation at the country club.”

“If they kill you, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’ll find another girl.”

“I’d rather eat glass.”

“Will you marry me?”

“I would.”

“What’s stopping us?”

“Look around. I’m in my parents’ house.”

“We’ll live here. In the guest room.” I moved over onto his pillow. He put his arm around me and we sighed in a kind of relief to be nearer again.

“You’re nuts,” he said softly, his tone bordering on ecstatic.

“We could get married and keep it to ourselves – stay at our own houses. We could wait until we get jobs, then move into our own place. Announce to the world that we’re married and already have been married.”

“What would be the point?”

“We’d know.”

He adjusted himself on top of me. He kissed my neck, my throat as I tilted my head back. Already, I could feel intensifying heat. He chuckled in disbelief, whispering, “I want you now.”

“Fuck me ‘til I scream.”

* * *

I sat near the telephone in my father’s red-carpeted study, a revered map of Palestine on the wall behind me and a glass-encased model of the Apollo 13 to my right. My lover was out again, only I knew he was not with a “friend.” The truth stared me down with its painted eyebrows raised in contemptuous triumph. I wiggled my fingers, fleshy hair to the truth teller’s face. A pencil’s tip had made a gray imprint on my palm where the nose would be. I stabbed at the delicate skin, trying to kill certainty. I was twenty, just turned.

I’d dropped two of my classes already and the university was threatening to take my scholarship away. I didn’t care. I dialed the numbers again, pounding in the last four digits, “Four…bastard...six…jerk…eight…sonofabitch…two…my love.” I meant the last words just the same as the others.

His tired father answered, “I don’t know where he is.”

“Just have him call me.”

“I will, sweetheart. I’m so sorry he’s unreachable.”

I didn’t slam the phone – I cradled it in my hands, listening to the dogged dial tone, a sound of blatant rejection. Dropping my head on the desk, I cried pitifully. Twenty years old and I lost everything. I lost love.

“Don’t give me that bullshit.”

“What?” I lifted my eyes to my mother at the door. She had a Mexican accent and pronounced the last word, “boollchet.” As always, she looked gorgeous. Her face was made up, her dark hair brushed out and long. Perfume scented the air with a glamorous aroma. She wore a black negligee, just because. Diamond stud earrings glinted from her perfect lobes. I could only imagine what I must have looked like in comparison, with my thrift-shop army jacket, my white-washed jeans with holes and frayed cuffs, my black tee-shirt stained by bleach on the front. Not to mention my red nose, blotchy skin, and hair sticking up in all directions. Hopeless curls.

“Losing everything – it’s bullshit.”

“What am I supposed to do? He’s gone, Mommy.” I broke down again, collapsing into a puddle of bitter misery.

She sat down, gracefully, on the large, faux-leather sofa chair. Crossing her legs, she tapped to her own music a bare foot with polished toenails.

“Make a wish,” she said. “Write it down on a small piece of paper.”

I did. I almost always did as she said.

“Now what?”

“Come, mija.”

She got up and took my hand, leading me into the darkened living room. We sat on the baby-blue shag carpet in front of the fireplace framed in black marble. She grabbed a long match out of a colorful box and lit it. She reached forward and flipped a brass switch, then lit the invisible hissing gas. A brilliant blue flame burst into life, growing into a licking yellow and orange fire. The glow mesmerized us. I saw the fire reflected in my mother’s large almond-shaped brown eyes.

Taking my hand in hers, she said, “Give me the paper with your wish.”

I handed it to her, looking into her eyes, wishing.

She kissed the folded scrap and said dramatically to the blaze, “I give you the Wish, and I ask you to see the Wish. I praise you and your infinite wisdom and power.” With that, she tossed the paper into the fire and we watched it curl and blacken into nothing.

I was about to ask when the wish would come true – my mother stopped me.

“There is no time for these things. They happen. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, or it could be twenty years from now.”

She smiled at me and held my face in her warm hands as only a mother can. She said, “You’re young. There’s more pain to go through. You’re crying the first tears of a lifetime’s worth. Keep them like treasure. These heart pains, these tears, will be innocent, precious gems because they are the first.”

***

E-mail transmission from him to me – August 20, 2002:

It was great seeing you last week. I can’t believe how…I shouldn’t say anything. No, never mind.

The message sat there staring me in the face, plain, simple, black words on a white screen. I had seen him on a side street, downtown, pushing a blond-haired toddler in a stroller who happened to be his youngest daughter of three. He had his gray-haired head down and when he looked up, his lips parted in obvious surprise. Lips kissable, still. We exchanged internet addresses following meaningless small talk. Forty years old, just turned.

E-mail transmission from me to him – August 20, 2002:

No, go on. Ha ha ha! It was good seeing you, too. Life has dealt us surprises, hasn’t it?

I had explained to him all that life had granted me: a rocky marriage that at least had given me children, a legal career I hated, and the early deaths of my parents. I didn’t tell him my first tears from losing him turned out to be costume jewelry around my neck in comparison to the diamond tiara on my head, ruby rings on my fingers and diamond-ruby bracelets circling my arms.

E-mail transmission from him to me – August 20, 2002:

I will go on. You’re stunning. To see you made me regret everything. Light years more than I already thought I did. I am sorry, so sorry for my stupidity. I loved you then, I love you now. You will always be in my heart. Blue…surrounds me. If you’ll let me, I will fuck you until you scream.

Turquoise light, brilliant and dreamy, unmatched is its lasting power. My wish had come true. He had found his way back to me.

E-mail transmission from me to him – August 21, 2002:

Dearest, I’d rather eat glass.

Damn Spam-Protection

Don't get me wrong - I truly appreciate Blogspot's effort at keeping out the spam posts. When I first saw the extra information I had to type into a box, those little letters you have decipher and retype, I had no trouble. I believe the first code was "XYPIL". Xypil. Sounded easy enough.

Except over time I keep coming across unreadable letters. Is that a "G" or a "Q"? Is that an "L" or an "H"? Resulting in the inevitable failure to post, calling for a repost.

DAMN MY EYES!

Am I alone in the struggle for clarity?

***

A couple of days ago I left my daughter, M, at my sister's house for the afternoon since she was having such a good time with her cousins. I didn't dare disrupt her bliss. So I drove home, picked up A, and spent the afternoon trying to get him to do homework. In the end, I slunk into my office to trudge through the internet while my 12-year old banged on his drums mere feet away from me, A's homework unfinished because after an hour or so of useless urging, I gave up. J, likewise, was playing drums rather than doing a report on Pancho Villa (chosen because my great-grandfather was a colonel in Villa's army) and thus I further had to endure my husband lecturing him. And agonizing.

Read blogs, read silly stuff, wrote some.

Dinner. Threw some frozen stuff into a pan, added some more frozen stuff to that, pan-fried cut-up, frozen chicken breasts from Trader Joe's. Mixed everything together for my own unique concoction that the family generally enjoys.

Time, freedom, quiet ... I really, really wanted that.

Near 7, I packed pajamas, a robe and slippers for the girl, figuring that she'd fall asleep on the way home. I planned on giving her a bath at my sister's, needing to work on a huge tangle she'd gotten in her hair from a braid my husband forgot to take out when putting her to bed (I'd been teaching the previous night). In fact, I'm reminded that in my darker moments, when I wonder what would happen to my family if I died from some horrible disease or accident...(not suicidal thoughts, just depressive ones), one of my main concerns is my daughter's long, curly hair. After a bath, you have to brush it out using a heavy-duty detangler otherwise she'll end up with the kind of dreadlocks homeless people get. My poor girl would end up with a buzzcut if left alone for long with just my husband.

Anyway, I grabbed a Fleetwood Mac CD and got into our VW Passat to take the half-hour drive to my sister's place. Time, freedom, quiet...the night was a welcome relief. I pressed on the gas, speeding some the dark road out of our neighborhood.

As I was turning left on one of several streets to get to the 210 Freeway, I noticed a brown-colored blur next to me as I accelerated. I turned to look out the window and there was a pug dog, running its little heart out next to me. I slowed the car, and watched as it crossed in front of me and leaped-ran across the street into the big dark of our suburban town. Had to be the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time - its belly round beneath, the run a matter of jumping with all four legs in the air, sort of a squeezing movement. Fast, fast, fast.

I laughed hard, thinking, I must look like that pug. Leap-running away from home.

For at least a half-hour. Or so. Hope my belly doesn't scrape asphalt.

Four L.A. Things Meme

Rodger Jacobs tagged me for an L.A. meme, which I'm jumping on because of my parental-like relationship with the city. First off, every time I leave Los Angeles I bitch about living there. In these other places, I'll see green, green, green, and wonder why I live in a city where trees are anemic, where brown is the general color of everything (even in Santa Monica and all the beach cities, the sand and brush dominate the scene and are...brown). I complain about needing to drive everywhere, about the lousy public transport system (always comparing it to London, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.). I say, bah, we have such soupy culture here. Everything is blended - you don't just buy tacos, you buy tacos fried in peanut oil with a sashimi and hummus side.

In other words, I probably act like most residents of Los Angeles. Thing is, just as we treated our parents, I complain about the restrictions and yet when life gets tough I curl up in the big arms of my city, thankful for my home.

I've spent my entire life in and out of the various cities that make up L.A. I learned to walk on the campus of U.S.C., on Hollywood Boulevard, and at the Griffith Observatory. I first rode a horse on the pony ride in Griffith Park. I learned to love old books in the used book stores on Hollywood Boulevard with my mother. I learned to drive on the Pasadena freeway. I got...drunk...for the first time at age 16 in my aunt's track-home garage in Van Nuys, surrounded by tons of family and lots of Vodka. My mom and I waited until 2:00 in the morning to go home being that I was the less inebriated one. My 21st birthday was spent at the Playboy Club, followed up by a blur of a dinner at the Wherehouse in Marina Del Rey ... all with a cousin [key the innocent whistling]. I knew old Pasadena (with the thrift shops, the trash, and the homeless residents) before it became Old Pasadena. I went to U.S.C. and Loyola Law School. I got married on the campus of U.S.C. My kids were born in Pomona.

I have never lived anywhere outside the perimeter of L.A. She will always be in my heart and never do I feel it more than when I'm returning home, flying through our blue-brown skies, over our brown, speckled hills, with the ocean's ivory line caressing the coast.

***

Four Jobs I’ve Had in My Life in L.A.:

Adjunct Professor, San Gabriel Valley
Associate Attorney, West Covina
Computer Room Assistant, Women’s Hospital, East L.A.
Receptionist, Gerontology Dep’t, U.S.C.

Four Movies About L.A. I Could Watch Over and Over:

Blade Runner
Rebel Without a Cause
Pulp Fiction
Traffic

Four Places I’ve Lived All Over L.A. (with food memories from each)

Pasadena, aromatic chicken from Bamboo Yuan (no longer in existence)
Arcadia, cheese bread from Rosemead’s North Woods Inn
Los Angeles, guacamole just like mom made at El Cholo
Los Angeles, the chili size from the Grinder on Fig

Four L.A. Themed TV Shows I Love to Watch:

Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Shield
Six Feet Under
Starsky and Hutch

Four Places I Would Vacation at in L.A.:

Disneyland (outside the technical margins of L.A. but still representative, symbolic)
Santa Monica
Beverly Hills Hotel
Huntington Ritz-Carlton, Pasadena

Four L.A. based Websites I Visit Daily:

ABC Local News (L.A.)
8763 Wonderland
Pasadena Star News
Danny Miller

Four of My Favorite Foods Found in L.A.:

Pastrami sandwich, The Hat, Pasadena
Ribs, Houston’s, Pasadena
Chili Burger, Tommy’s, Los Angeles
Swedish Pancakes, IHOP, Pasadena

Four Places in L.A. I Would Rather Be Right Now:

A used bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard
The Huntington Library with my camera, Pasadena
The Westin Bonaventure on Downtown L.A. with …
Sipping coffee at a café on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena with a good friend, talking about things only we talk about

Tagged:

Lori (even though she despises Hell-A!)
Danny Miller
Jim over at Meat of the Matter
Anyone else who reads this blog who lives in the L.A. area, go ahead and put your meme in the comments!

Passionless

My blog has become completely non-anonymous – identification buried within a guise of anonymity. Some members of the family read it. Some good friends read it. I love that – it’s wonderful to post a post of my inner workings, or something memoir-related and know I’ve reached out in some way that’s good and warm and love-inducing. Similarly, my usual readers have become like family, like my good friends.

There is such a thing as too much information under these circumstances. I’ve found myself cutting information. Trimming detail. Reconsidering how I describe another. Edit, edit, edit.

I’ve definitely remained quiet on some potentially interesting topics. Mustn’t talk about that…anything but that.

There might be judgment. Someone will delinkalize me and everyone knows how terrible that can be.

So I wonder what to do now? Do I create a new blog, under a new name? Do I reveal my real name here? Do I just come out of the blogger’s closet and be done with it? What IS this blog about? What DO I want to say with my blissful ruminations?

***

So I have a friend of a friend and as a young woman she wished for love and passion in her life. She married, had children. She lived day to day, squeezing in various hobbies or another to fill the empty spots on her daily calendar. One day she woke up and found that she’d turned into a couch.

It was a fine couch, don’t doubt, the friend of a friend said – dark green in color, plaid in design, comfortable. Firmly set. She was a recliner. People turned to her at the end of the day and relaxed there in her warm, cozy embrace. Every night the dog curled up in lazy sleep on the armrest. Children dropped food and money into the creases, they once or twice threw up there, but the vomit never lasted, a solid Hoover brought to wipe it all away. The husband slept on the couch each night, soundly, in front of a blaring T.V.

The couch was useful, highly important, an absolute necessity. She got great satisfaction from her service in the household, but what of her dreams? Perhaps this was passion-redefined, perhaps she had misunderstood passion. Perhaps passion is simply the occupation of time. The hope to leave a lasting impression.

It’s not so bad being a couch, the friend of a friend said. The best time of the day is nighttime when ghosts walk the hallways and the joys of the day swim in the heated air. She sits in the center of the house, watching, guarding, ready for someone to jump into her.

Feeling Chatty

1.

In rereading the story below, I forgot to mention a sight my husband and I saw one day at Legoland. Outside one of the many stores at the amusement park, was an unmanned cart laden with toys and tee-shirts and other sundry souvenirs. There was a young boy playing with one of the spongy axes, bopping his brother on the head. The two good-looking parents in their 30’s were playing with the kids. They looked to be middle-class suburbanites with nice clothes, neatly coiffed hair, and the children in the best outfits Target has to offer. Good shoes. The stroller with yet a third kid in it, a little girl, was a fairly new and sturdy one, definitely clean.

My husband and I were sitting mere feet away at some tables, all five of us eating pizza and sipping soda. D and I were commenting on how if that were our cart and our business, we certainly wouldn’t leave it unattended. Just as we were saying this, expressing our distrust of humanity as a whole, the father of the axe-wielding child took one other axe off the cart and gave it to the other kid and the whole lot of them walked away without ever paying for the toys.

D and I looked at each other, disbelieving this “nice” family just did that.

“Wow,” I said.

“Some role model,” D said.

We kept thinking they were going to come back, that they’d made a mistake…and maybe they did. Maybe they were going to pay for it somewhere else…at another stand…except the cart was outside a store. All they had to do was walk inside and pay. They didn’t.

D did take a stroll and tell the young manager that a family just ripped them off and that maybe they shouldn’t just leave the cart out there. How interesting that we didn’t trust our local citizens and sure to form, a suburban family comes along and steals from this very nice park.

Another addendum to the thieving post below: at the same birthday party, the ladies also mentioned lying about one of their children’s ages to get the kid into Disneyland for free.

I’m left wondering if, like Fromage suggests in the comments below, this has become part of our culture – we are a culture of criminals. We are a society that believes in the precepts, “to each his own,” “do what we have to do," and "dog eat dog." We are taught this in our early years on the playground when kids grab toys out of each other’s hands, when they take food off each other’s plates. Our media continually glorifies the “murder” case by recycling over and over again, murder stories for entertainment. I could go on indefinitely on our media. And then there is the government and all the corruption that keeps leaking into the mainstream...with laws being written and re-written to make legal such conduct.

I know that the family who took the toys felt the store deserved it for leaving the cart unattended. I know the women at the party felt Disneyland charges too much anyway for three-year-old guests who can’t even fully participate in all the entertainment the park has to offer. I know they also felt the stores somehow owed them for all they spent. The same sense of entitlement probably extends to cheating on taxes, stealing gas at the gas pump, and eating produce right out of the bins in the local supermarkets. It's a sad, true state of being.

The last comparison by the way is not the same thing as dipping your hands deep into the rice bin or deep into the bean bin just to feel the weirdness against your skin. How fun was that?

2.

A couple of weeks ago I visited a friend of mine, a woman about my age, prematurely grey like me, cute face, rather round by current standards. In fact, her weight has long been a point of great pain for her, especially when it comes to her husband. Their sexual life has dwindled to nothing and it has been this way for years. He actually makes comments when she steps into their jacuzzi - he makes faces at her with regard to her clothing. She’s beautiful, upbeat, and funny as all get out. When we get together, I laugh my ass off at the things she says. Well…she admitted to me that she and her husband have separated. She has a new love in her life. She’s ecstatic…tales of all night love-making, exciting dates, driving up the coast…all basically without the knowledge of her husband. One could probably say this is an affair.

She then proceeded to tell me how many women she’s spoken to who are in similar situations with their spouses. Men who no longer show interest, who are perfectly happy to lead celibate (apparently) lives, who do nothing to feed the marriage. She’s a manicurist so her job allows this type of intimate conversation. She says, “Do you know the percentage of my clientele who are unhappy, married women in their 40's?”

“Try me.”

“Must be 70% of my clients. Those are just…my clients. Imagine what it must be on a grander scale?”

Oh I imagine.

“Imagine,” she said, “how many women are off…on extramarital adventures.”

Oh for the love of all that’s holy, tell me. In great detail.

“Really?” I say, “I can’t imagine.”

“It’s a disease in our country. Check out the chat rooms on AOL.”

So I do. I slap my picture up on my profile, I announce that I’m a teacher (careful to say “part-time” lest I mislead anyone, God forbid I mislead in chat rooms), I state unequivocally that I’m married with many children. Within an instant of stepping into a chat room for people in their 40’s, I get three instant messages from various men. They each tell me I’m beautiful. I get up from my little chair and dance around in joy. I’m a woman again! I’m not just a piece of furniture in my house! I’m not just a taxi driver! I actually have sexual appeal!

“I am????” I’m beside myself with illicit joy.

“Yes, very much so. I love your nose.”

“I’m blushing!”

“What are your fantasies?”

“My…my…what?”

“FETISHES FANTASIES. What do you like?”

Oh shit. I no longer dance at the lift of my confidence.

I type, “I like the mountains. You know…cabins…romance in front of a wood fire.” And yes, I use ellipses when I write. My fantasy is a big snore, but hell if I’m actually going to “go there.” I do wonder why I typed “wood” when discussing an obviously sexual question. Must be Freudian. I take a deep breath, deciding to venture “there” for just a moment, for a single…moment.

I type, “What are yours?”

“I love the Wizard of Oz.”

“As in…Dorothy?”

“Yes. I get hot thinking I’m the Cowardly Lion and I’m doing Dorothy in her red slippers and red panties.”

It is at this point I come to the conclusion that my friend is wrong. Women are not the only people in severe sexual crisis. I say my goodbyes and return to watch “24” next to my sleeping, snoring husband. I show him my boobs…and he continues to sleep. So while I may be part of the deprived 70%, I am thankful he has no wish to be any sort of Lion…or Scarecrow…or ouch, ouch, ouch, the Tin Man.

On the other hand, Dorothy does have…an awfully cute nose.

Thieving Suburbanites

The birthday party was typical for the San Gabriel Valley, a myriad of attendees gathering at a 1970's-built single-story ranch home, tastefully decorated in semi-antiques, an HDTV, and red-apple wallpaper. Apples of all colors sat on shelves and in curio cabinets and the carpeting was a deep apple-red. Present are former and current long-time neighbors, a few parents of school chums to the birthday boy, family members. Not everyone knows each other. The hostess is a bubbly, friendly sort. She's warm and kind and she and I kid about how her 5-year-old son, R, will marry my M, my 5-year-old daughter. The two children are wonderful friends. He's a true gentleman even at such a young age (when it was time to leave, he offered to open the car door for her, and did). The first time I saw them playing together, I was touched (and maybe wondering if I should be forewarned) at how M literally beamed at him. They were 4. Despite the fact little R has moved to another school, the two still remember one another and played together the most.

Sweet.

I sat with several other women, including the hostess, the five or six of us sharing school stories, ADD stories, sports stories, and other such anecdotes about our kids. R's dad buzzed around, working to convince us to have some Martinis. After some tentative rejection, we said yes. “Appletinis” all around.

Mind you, I was trying really hard not to check the hour. There was an element of personal torture sitting in this quasi-knitting-circle and even the prospect of alcohol (which was weird to me because there was this huge Bible on the countertop and I swear to God Martini drops spilled on it as the drinks were passed to party guests) didn’t help. The women were curious…the x-ray technician who loved animals and who has a mean temper which recently showed when a fellow soccer mom dared smack the windows of her SUV during a parking mishap, the Oregon retiree who still wears her hair long and red and sports a nose piercing while dressing in stylish denim and suede, the sexy divorcee with black-rimmed glasses who adores her teenage children, R’s grandmother who chugged beers like nobody’s business with the long, no-longer-blond hair, and the hostess’s sister who wears puffy boots and a long knitted scarf. And me. I wore my jeans, suede cowboy boots and not-warm-enough coral sweater, and my white-streaked curls kinked out due to the gray clouds and threat of rain.

I laughed in unison with the ladies as we chatted (the men were outside, bonding over a new leaf blower the dad recently purchased) and nursed the Martini. While I sat in this circle, I wished I smoked pot again (another story, another time, a lot of sweat trying to explain it) and cursed my friend G for always dropping the ball on bringing some to our breakfasts. The problem is that I’m inherently shy and would much rather be at home, reading, writing…oh hell…really, I’d rather be in Palm Springs, reading, writing, entertaining my fantasies about taking on a lover.

The conversation turned to the skyrocketing costs of goods, to the joys of shopping at discount places. The x-ray technician said, “I have to tell you how great Walmart is on a Friday night at 11:00 – no crowds, the cool people all hang out there, it’s so awesome. My kids and I’d been bored last weekend and absolutely had a blast walking the aisles. Now I know where to go! And it’s cheap, too!”

Cheers, we all said with our Martini glasses (red plastic, disposable cups). Here, here Walmart.

The blower blew outside – the men were blowing leaves out of the bouncy house. Taking turns. M ran into the house and R chased her – neither kid was wearing shoes and it couldn’t be more than 50 degrees outside.

The sister chimed in, talking to the hostess, “I forgot to tell you guys about the great bargain I got at Target the other day.”

“Ooo do tell,” the ladies said. “Love that store.”

“Disneyland to my kids,” I added.

“Well, I’d stopped by to pick up some things and I found this adorable pair of jeans – you know, with the sequins? They weren’t on sale…forty bucks or so, but I went ahead and popped them into the basket. Didn’t even try ‘em on. Got to the checkout stand and saw the bill to be only about fifty. Thought maybe I was wrong about the pants. When I got to the car, I saw the receipt didn’t list the pants. Oh my god, the cashier forgot to charge me for the pants.”

“Wow…lucky girl,” someone said.

“Great deal!” The divorcee laughed.

Cheers.

The men outside started doing shots and I was having flashbacks of college (well, what college was to some people being that I spent most of my time in the library, wandering the stacks and breathing in the delicious mustiness of old literature and literary criticism books). I began to wonder if the Christian pre-school our children attend is aware so many parents of their students are blatant lushes.

The x-ray technician added to the tale of thievery, “I never told you about Home Goods.”

The hostess queried, “Home Goods?”

The red-headed retiree clarified, “Yes, the store Sears had going for a while, went out of business.”

“Right,” the tech said, “I loved that place. So when they had their final clearance sale, me and the kids – the daughter was just 4 – we headed right over to pick up stuff. We were shopping up a storm – totally excellent deals. Anyway the daughter spent the time scooting around with one of the those kiddie shopping carts the store lets customers use.”

“Love those carts,” the divorcee said.

The hostess smiled really big, a gushy sort of smile, “Awww…R loves those, too. Adorable!”

“Sweet!” I added.

X-ray tech continued, “So we go through the checkout stand, buy all our stuff…just $102 for tons of decorative stuff…and we walk to the Suburban. I unload, look around, and just pick up the kiddie cart and shove it in the truck.”

Gasps all around, claps.

The men had moved on from the shots and were now playing with R’s brand-new fishing toy. The end of the fishing toy, the plastic hook, got caught on top of the added-on, extra-huge garage, the extra garage that’s meant to house the hostess’s toy-box (by the way, for those not in the know a “toy-box” is not made of wood and is not used to store Playskool toys, but rather is a trailer meant to tow around ATV’s, motorcycles, dune buggies, and such). R and M watched as the men took turns trying to unhook the plastic hook.

Divorcee and the retiree laughed heartedly about the stolen shopping cart.

“She still plays with it and she’s 7,” the x-ray technician said, thinking back almost wistfully.

I am now…totally stunned. It must be the pot (or was it my conscience?) that always made me turn back around to the cashier and hand back the un-rung goods, or drive back to the market to pay for the candy lifted by one of my kids, or thank god J was caught shoplifting the time he tried it back in December. As I sat there, downing the last of the Martini in a red plastic cup and openly checking across the room at the clock, I wondered how many thieves live in suburbia. Thieving moms. Stealing goods from Target and Walmart and places going out of business.

I wonder what other crimes they’re committing. Damn, I wished I had a pipe and some good bud.

The men all rallied together and pulled hard at the plastic hook. It came off the garage intact and R and M danced around, holding hands, and kicking up their cold, pink heels. Their wedding will be…fabulous.

Happy, Happy Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends.

We Three...

Spent Saturday night at the Twin Palms in Pasadena for T's birthday – D and I spent an entire evening with just the "grown-ups”: my brother B and his wife T, my sister A and her husband DH. The six of us. We ate well, we drank cocktails, and danced to disco music like we were all just dating, like we were free of everything that binds. We laughed and made fun of others...throwing stones as if we didn’t live in glass houses...but in the end what made us laugh the most were our own reflections.

I am always amazed at the closeness of my siblings and I - how it is that today we are best friends - that given the choice of going out with friends or each other, we will choose each other. We simply have too much fun. The inside jokes are ancient, the experiences we've shared are unique, our faults are totally understood. Our connection is rooted in difficulty, in survival, despite vastly different viewpoints of the same childhood environment.

B is infinitely harder in judgment on my father than on my mother. My sister and I are harder on my mother. He was the one who fought them the most – my sister and I were much more compliant, much more accepting of our circumstances, trying the mend the problems, trying to live as best we could within the chaotic confines of the Pasadena house.

One of the byproducts of the “difficult childhood” was that our struggles were unacknowledged. From the outside, being the children of glamorous parents, we couldn’t possibly have any complaints. Cousins and friends saw us as privileged and lucky, oh-so-lucky to have the favorites as our parents. How fun to live with the hosts of the party! How fun to have parents who’d travel and go to Disneyland at the drop of a hat or drive up the coast on a moment’s notice and stay in fancy hotels! How fun! How amazing to live in the old house with the huge pine tree behind that red brick wall…a house big enough to have a gate at the end of the driveway. How fun to zip around in sports cars on your dad’s lap! Nobody does those things!

How could such a life be bad?

We became isolated…nobody understood what we saw, day to day. We were forgotten when our parents could no longer hold it together – my mother being hospitalized – my mother disappearing one summer into the depths of Mexico – my father living away from the house. They occupied the spotlight in their downslide just the way they did when they were on top of their game.

Nobody understood the pain of living in that house.

For a while, we three traveled on slightly different roads. B was busy growing into adulthood, getting his college degree, while I was already there, lawyer-ing, getting married, having my first baby. My sister A was right behind me, working the corporate world, getting married. My parents were divorced, my father dying. When his death happened, the three of us had huddled together in handling the difficult process of telling my mother about his death and honoring my father’s wish that she not be at the funeral. My father had remarried. He’d alienated his own family. The politics of his funeral were…horrible. I remember my brother calling my mother – he’d taken on the chore of telling her not to come. Took the brunt of her anger. I think it was the first time I saw B as an adult.

Years later, B was divorced, I had my third child, and my sister had two. My mother died. All the work we’d done to repair hurt feelings since my father’s death seemed a grateful close call. We had no idea she’d leave us so soon. The three of us were left with the job of closing up her life – we three took on different tasks. I handled the probate, B handled the cleaning of her house, and my sister worked on getting the house sold.

This adult-orphan-hood has been yet another challenge from our parents…another reason for the three of us to be isolated from the extended family. Nobody knew our childhood for its reality, now few know our adulthood. We are the only ones of our generation in our family who lost both parents…making us once again, as always, different. We three…

B got married to T in Maui, Hawaii – we really love her. She fit in perfectly with our already-tight crew, not an easy hurdle. We three are now all matched, making for an even set of six.

Maui for the wedding was an amazing trip – the lot of us traveling so far together and staying in this beautiful villa together for a week. While I have many wonderful memories of the week, one in particular remains the definition of the relationship we share.

We had booked a popular boat trip for all of us to go snorkeling in Molokini, a lovely bay filled with brilliant coral and fish, the sort of place snorkeling was created for. The boat was great, the view lovely, and the weather perfect. When we arrived at Molokini, we got our snorkeling gear on…the three of us…with the spouses and kids. We’d never done it before so figuring out the proper fitting of the equipment took some effort. Well, we jumped in the water and all of us learned to do some basic snorkeling. Everyone was having a wonderful time…

Towards the end of the designated snorkeling time, my brother, my sister, and I, found ourselves alone away from the rest of the crowd. We had those face masks on, the breathing tubes pointing up to the blue sky…we were kicking in the water with our fins, swimming and admiring the view. All at once, we realized how silly we looked. We began making faces underwater, making those signals that scuba divers do, purposely slowing movements in the water, putting our thumbs up, putting them down…we were in stitches, sucking in water, laughing, drowning…just the three of us…kids again…on a fantastic trip, on one to be envied…a prince…princesses…we were ridiculous and carefree. I don’t know when I’ve laughed so hard in my life as that morning in the cool ocean, with just the three of us. Laughing at our own reflections.

Our roads have finally come together – we are all raising families, we are all working to make ends meet. We three have built a tight defense against the outside world – we’ve never connected more. So…dancing to disco, feeling the light effects of Lemon Drops and love, life is good. We’re not alone at all…we’re in the middle of a crowd.

Changing a Picture

I changed the picture on my profile – not so much for the “me” part but for the “M in (dark) Pink” part. The shot is from Carlsbad, California, a moment on a bench in the middle of a field of mums last spring for a self-portrait. The expression on M’s face is one of amusement, curiosity, expectation, and blissful innocence. The day is in front of her – she’s going to get lemonade, she’s going to lunch at Legoland, she’s going to ride the rides and feel the ocean breeze against her pink-cheeked face.

Her day is going to be dazzling.

I love the portrait – so it’s there, a picture of what’s to come, what must come – oh we can’t wait for what’s next!

By now, M is done with her first ballet class – she was so excited this morning, she could barely eat. In fact her bagel, delicately spread with I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Butter and dotted with raisins (a raisin bagel can never have too many raisins) sits in the refrigerator, waiting to be eaten. A breakfast skipped in anticipation of much better things.

D called me from school to let me know that J got a “B+” on his history test, a test D was sweating over because J was left to study on his own. No help yesterday from Dad, no pre-testing. The reports from the other classes are good so far, J seems much more in control of his impulses, not fighting with other students, more attentive. We’re feeling pretty good about dumping all the teachers from last semester in favor of bringing J into D’s fold. (Last night, D called from a school meeting telling me last semester’s teachers all won awards…D said he wanted to throw up because point-blank, these teachers had completely dropped J as a student due to his special needs. The last and only e-mail I received from one of those former teachers right before the semester ended was cold and bitchy in reply to a request to gather work he'd not completed. I was pleading for help, pleading to help him get a "C" so he could end the semester on a positive note. None of the other teachers ever responded to the same request, no phone calls, no notes, not a stitch of help. Two of the four teachers awarded him "D's" and low citizenship scores, putting J on the "ineligible list" which prevents him from participating in extracurricular activities for the next weeks. These "rewarded" teachers did it in the face of and despite my pleas for help. Nice.)

I saw the doctor again about my shoulder – waited two and half hours to get a shot of cortisone that surprisingly didn’t hurt as much as my grandmother said it would. God bless my grandmother and her ability to soothe hurts… “Mija, I still feel that shot in my shoulder to this day, the pain. Tan mucho dolor!” Granted, the shots she remembers were given to her sometime in the 70's. Two hours in the waiting room and about forty-five minutes in the doctor’s examining room. I need an MRI because there’s a chance we’re looking at a torn rotator cuff. I’m old, I’m an old person who doesn’t exercise enough. In honor of my lack of exercise, I drive through the McDonalds and order a chicken sandwich…the crispy chicken sandwich…and eat it happily in the quiet of the house as I watch a soap opera. All I needed was a robe and slippers.

As I write this, A is looking over my shoulder and reading. I shoo him away as he says, “D is for…dad...”

The boys need to be picked up – so I leave to get A first. Because I also have to pick up J who gets out of school at 2:35, I bring a Tupperware bowl full of chips and several scoops of salsa (put into another Tupperware bowl) – the dog stayed home. Grabbed two sodas on my way out the door, having passing the fridge. The bowls slide a little on the front seat and so I reach and keep them still, a warm breeze coming in from the outside. The heat, the trees lining the suburban streets, the ranch-style homes, the sound of leaves being whipped by the wake of my SUV reminds me of afternoons spent at a boyfriend’s house when I was in high school. I remember the guilt of those afternoons – my parents had no idea what their daughter was up to…in a home alone with a boy. The heat is welcome, the pushy breeze bringing with it memories and a glance of a future.

When I see A, he’s not smiling but I can tell it’s a pretense of seriousness. He breaks in to a huge grin when he comes in the car, pulling out a certificate, saying, “Mom, I won an award for the being the BEST reader.”

Normally, most people imagine an exclamation point after such an announcement – not for A. He always speaks in a muted manner; he underspeaks unless he’s angry and agitated.

While A munches on chips and salsa (“That’s good salsa,” he mumbled as we drove over the train tracks, passing the liquor store and our favorite Ray’s Market) and I read my latest acquisition, House of Leaves, we wait in the mild heat in a line of cars until J gets out of school. We see him quickly – his long and thick brown hair that falls in his eyes is immediately recognizable. He grins when he approaches, grinning for nothing.

“School was good.”

The afternoon has started – the house will be noisy with the kids fighting, eating, playing drums, watching T.V., opening and closing the refrigerator, and asking for things, always asking. I will be in my office reviewing some writing I’ve done, a test for Business Law due tomorrow morning for copying, and an e-mail or two I sent out. Funny on the e-mail, funny how amazingly awkward I am when it comes to chatting with friends and even family. How funny that when talking to someone who matters, my words fumble and things never sound like how I mean them. D will come home soon to a messy house, to dusty shelves, to defrosting pork chops on the counter, to a dog on a mad dash across the street, followed by four people…hair flying, bare feet and shoed feet…all screaming, “SASSY!!!”

Something’s going to happen next…and we’re waiting…amused, curious, expectant, and blissfully innocent.

Bobbing Along

The depression always passes. On Friday morning I awakened with a normal energy level, even calling my brother to see if he wanted to have lunch. I changed the bedding, tidied the house. Completed the exam and took it to the college to be copied. Just normal stuff...nothing hyper...because that's something else. My mother used to have these deep, deep lows, where she'd cry inconsolably over some past wrong, then she'd zoom back up and she'd be on her porch, taking up the wood floors, planning to do...something. Invariably, my father would have to contact someone to come fix what she'd started but of course couldn't possibly finish.

Craziness.

This morning J decided he wasn't going to school. And he didn't. No amount of threats was going to get him out of the door. He claimed he didn't feel well. No fever. Just a stuffy nose. A claim of a stomach ache the night previous which had kept him up. I ranted a little. D did, too. J said he was sorry and I asked him to prove how sorry he was by getting dressed and getting in the car so I could drop him off at school. He didn't. He just stood in the hallway while I packed the car this morning, saying he loved me, that I was the best mom ever. I merely looked at him, letting him know I was not swayed by sweet words. I reminded him he had a choice. He chose differently than I wanted.

So he's lost the computer this coming weekend. We try to be patient. We understand there are reasons...but at some point, he was perfectly capable of making a "good" choice and he insisted on the other choice. He did eventually get dressed and showered, D picking him around 11:00 so the child could attend two of his four core classes. Oh and phys. ed.

Great.

But...but...he has improved. The medication has brought a calmness to the house that was missing. He seems more even-keeled. Last week at school was actually much improved. Granted, it was his first week of a new semester, with new teachers. We've put him into D's class - so J is getting a bit "home-schooled." Meaning, D can micromanage the work much better. The other teachers who are part of my husband's team are veteran teachers (better than the newbies J has had all year) who are in close contact with D - so they'll be able to assist more easily with the micromanaging.

Whew.

A is doing all right - he's still struggling with writing and math. He's a good reader, though. We finally found some books he likes: "Captain Underpants." What more can a boy ask?

M is...M. She's learning her ABC's and numbers. Makes me think she'll have no trouble in kindergarten. Granted, like the boys, she's got a ways to go with her fine motor skills - writing is hard for her, copying letters, etc.

So...we're bobbing along. The sun is coming through the glass windows of my office, creating a lovely silhouette of the lillies outside.

Depression

Rice in a glass canister sits on the crumb-spread counter, waiting to be cooked. Raw chicken waits in the refrigerator. Tomatoes have been chopped and left on the cutting board. Night’s more than fallen. The television blasts kid shows – has been doing it all day from sunup to sundown. Bed sheets should be changed, the floors should be mopped, and the carpets should be vacuumed. Homework’s not quite done. Dishes fill the sink. The dishwasher is full of clean dishes. Clutter fills most corners, corners and tables and chairs, clutter that looks mountainous. Shoes, toys, cooking utensils, water bottles, paper, envelopes, a sweater, shirts, books, pillows, throw blankets, DVD’s, CD’s, a State Bar Identification card on my desk that says, “Inactive.” The children clash in the back bedroom. The husband’s just called, a mile away, returning from a doctor’s appointment. Yet another $175 spent to fix the oldest. The younger kids need baths. D will be aggravated when he comes home and finds me. Finds the mess.

The computer screen stares at me and I think that when the children finally get to sleep I will climb up on a stool and get the tequila down to drink. Maybe I’ll throw in the last Vicodin for that little extra boost.

I’m so sleepy, so tired, so bone tired, I can barely type the words out. The heavy weight of depression has hit me like it’s done before, knocking me on my ass. Keeping me flat on my back like a dissected frog – hands and legs and innards pinned and tagged.

“Useless.”

“Unwilling.”

“Empty.”

The stress of the kids’ challenges has finally gotten to me. Everything depends on me and D to keep it together. Every day. All I think is that tomorrow I have to turn in a test to be copied for the students for Monday. The test is on my laptop, incomplete. The test reminds me I also have to prepare for lectures next week. More steep mountains to navigate, drainage of the little energy I have. My shoulder is killing me. Nothing takes away the pain – I made another appointment with the orthopedic doctor.

I had lunch with my sister today for her birthday. I was late getting to her house to baby sit her littlest one – not a perfect child, unlike her other two. I secretly am happy. I swallow that horrible thought. Swallow back my tears. When we go to lunch, we’re slow at eating, and I can’t think of things to say, and I have to rush off, but forget it’s a birthday lunch and leave just enough money to pay for my portion of the bill. I feel like an idiot on the way home. A cheap idiot.

The music plays and D is angry at me. He wants help getting the kids to eat. I bypass the rice. I heat up frozen chicken wings and stick frozen veggies in the microwave. I don’t eat. D and J already ate fast-food. So bad for D. I don’t care at the moment. I don’t eat. I return to the computer. I play “mommy and honey” with M. She chats and feeds me plastic food. I laugh and talk nicely to her.

D is angry that I’m not helping the kids get to bed. I don’t care. The tequila will only make my stomach hurt and the Vicodin won’t do anything because I'd just be taking the one since I don’t have any more left. J slips in and bangs on his drums, making me jump and bitch at him, “Use your soft sticks!”

He switches and bangs away, playing rock songs for me. I tell him how great it is and it is. He slips back out. D is angry at him because he didn’t do his homework like he was asked.

I sigh. Maybe wine will be easier on my stomach. Blech, I never like wine no matter how much I drink. My sister calls and asks me to go to dinner tomorrow night but I’m too tired, too weighed down by the depression. Tomorrow I’m going to take M to school so I’ll have the whole day alone but it will go by and I won’t even notice. It will be an instant between taking A and M and J to school and picking them up. The time will slip past me unnoticed. I will wonder why so much quiet time means so little.

I sigh when I hear M screaming again. My shoulder is killing me.

Tonight’s quiet time will go by barely noticed. Midnight is going to come fast and I’m going to hang on to the late night with the most incredible regret of it in the morning when I wake with bags under my eyes and skin that won’t let the makeup stick.

The goddamn depression has come to me and I’m terrified that I’m my mother and that the children will grow to hate me. That my husband will grow to hate me. That I will grow to hate me. I shake away the thought as J plays with the soft sticks, as he tries to keep a beat. I’m going to get up now, get up and get the kids to bed. Forget the bath. They're playing a chasing game and the thought of catching them exhausts me.

I hear D - he's at the office door and is saying nothing.

I’ll lay down with M in her little pink bed and we’ll just lie quietly until she falls asleep. How sweet it will be, how restful. How nice to hide in the dark room waiting for quiet time.

L.A. Funeral

The memorial service for my brother’s father-in-law, Konnie, was held in Chino, California, and most of the guests who lined up alongside the busy boulevard to greet the grieving widow, S, at the chapel’s entrance wore cowboy boots. Spanish words colored the conversations the way the pink camellias brightened the green of the shrubs surrounding the funeral home. My sister’s 18-month old daughter played peek-a-boo with the railing, her happiness the antithesis to the broken-hearted crying we could hear from inside.

My most vivid memory of Konnie took place in Maui at my brother’s wedding to Konnie’s daughter, T. We all flew out there, T’s parents, our kids and us, and a slew of friends. The lot of us stayed together in a beautiful villa right on the beach. I had just gotten dressed for the ceremony – fancy make-up, my longish hair put up in a blossom of crisscrossing locks, a dress that made my curves look more voluptuous than lazy. I had to get something from our rented van and I skip-ran down the front stairs, barefoot, past Konnie. When I returned, I looked up and there he was, watching me and smoking a cigarette. His hair was cropped short, military style – his hefty build was draped in a green print Hawaiian shirt. He leaned on the railing, a tattoo, blued with age, visible on his forearm. I smiled and waved and he waved back, saying, “You clean up real nice there.”

I laughed, said thank you, and walked up the stairs, meeting my niece, Aa, at the top. The wedding was on.

Konnie loved fishing, Model-A cars, and smoking. He was known for often using the words son-of-a-bitch (said more like “sum-bitch”) and bullshit (said more like “boo-shit”). I got to know him a little when we’d go to B’s and T’s home for barbeques. We’d all sit by the pool late into the evening, smoking and drinking and chatting. He spoke caringly about his family, living and deceased. I could see beneath the rough exterior, a truly kind soul. He had a low, quiet laugh. At the same time, it was best to duck and cover when he got crotchety. If you weren’t expecting harsh words, he could hurt you.

He and I talked only a couple of times since he learned he had lung cancer. I tried to encourage him, reminding him to take one day at a time, but he looked at me sideways and said, “I won’t be around more’n six months. I know that.” I could only pat his hand and nod, knowing I was on the outside of that journey. Just like everyone else was. There’s little to say on the subject when you aren’t facing such a certain, immediate future, like someone in his position.

“We love you, Konnie.”

The service ended with my brother getting up in front of the gathering to thank everyone. I noticed as he got up that he walked exactly like my father. I was proud of B this past week. The death had been sudden, unexpected. Konnie had collapsed in front of his house. His wife, S, was devastated, like a lost child – his daughter was stoic. B drove the two around all week, helped make the arrangements, finally, thanking everyone. My little brother…was no longer little.

We piled into our cars after the service, each of the cars bearing the orange “funeral” stickers. We turned on our lights and started the long drive to Rose Hills Cemetery in Whittier, accompanied by the funeral traffic cops on bikes and one cousin on a Harley who helped manage the unwieldy line of folks. As we drove, I chatted on the cell with my sister, both of us admiring the Harley cousin (long hair flapping in the wind beneath his black helmet, leather jacket whipping back and forth) and recalling the funerals of our parents. Got a little weepy. The ride got a tad wild on the 60 freeway when we had to deflect away from the 57 eventually to merge onto the 605 where we’d exit. The motorcycle men waved their hands frantically to get us all to the left, then to the right. I learned later my aunt had no sticker, sweating it out at the end of line like a flea hanging on to a greyhound.

I felt honored to be in the procession – honored to be taking part in such an old tradition. There’s this wonderful sense of importance in that line as you roll through stop signs and stop lights. The dead need us as they make their way to their place in the deep dark.

Once there we stood watch on a green hill spotted with flat, granite headstones, the remnants of an ocean’s wind kicking up, chilling me. The sky was a bright stone’s blue, downtown Los Angeles clear and steel grey in the horizon. In between here and there are miles of suburbia and industry and commerce. So much so we even have cities named City of Commerce and City of Industry.

We didn’t go to the follow-up dinner. Instead my sister and I took our grandmother to lunch at a local fish house where we talked over beer about the dirty dreams we have in our old age, making my grandmother laugh and laugh, saying, “Sin vergüenza muchachas!”

I think Konnie would have laughed, too.

Just found this...

I hope this isn't just one more lost liberty in a long line of many.

Image from Jesus' General. Thought it was quite clever.

Lying

Near ten last night, I pushed open the pocket door to my office to see what J was up to on the computer, hoping to urge him gently to bed. Usually when he’s on the computer, he listens to his music, making and remaking play lists, he reads drum websites, band websites (a risky venture), and chats with friends. D and I always float in and out of the office to monitor his activity as best we can without breathing down his neck. We can’t catch everything even with our filters in place. I’ve considered a snooping type program, but haven’t had any luck with the test downloads.

At the sound of the door sliding open, J immediately shut down the browser, setting off my internal alarms. I bristled and questioned him, moving him away from the computer, but he popped back into the seat, opened the browser again, and before I realized what he was doing, he deleted the history.

I breathed. Counted to ten.

We argued. He went to bed in a huff. Quickly I searched the drive for web pages and lo and behold, there it was, J had recreated an account on MySpace.com even though we specifically prohibited him from having one until he brought his grades up. Our plan had been that he’d have to attain “C’s” in order to continue getting free-reign access to his drum set rather than on a very restricted schedule, and “B’s” to get access to time-sucking MySpace.Com. I didn’t think it was that strict an approach to take. I thought it was simple, clean, uncomplicated. That was before the possibility of BP. We’d decided to stick with the plan because I was very afraid he’d take advantage of the “excuse” (he’s very shrewd in that way). More importantly, I didn’t want to rock the boat – I wanted him to know that life was the same, that this “diagnosis” didn’t change anything. No big deal. Just like any other medical condition. We’ll treat it, move forward.

Well, apparently, he believed the grade situation to be so hopeless that he decided to go ahead and get the MySpace.com account. It was easy to do…he’d do it quickly behind doors…he’d delete history…he’d deny he had an account…if he got caught looking at an HTML page at MySpace.com, he would use the excuse that he was helping a friend out with their account. No problem. No struggle. Total satisfaction.

So, we caught him red-handed. So, deleting the history didn’t work since I decided to test-drive a snooper program (still doesn’t record chats, though).

He lied.

Lied, lied, lied.

D and I remained calm in the face of the BIG LIE and grounded him. But…as much as I want to maintain consistency, we do have to deal with the problem of discouragement. Fact of the matter is that getting good grades at his particular school is a problem. Indeed it may seem to him an insurmountable problem. We might have to adjust our simple approach to something more complex – something layered that will still allow him to reach the longer-term goals of “B’s” and “C’s”.

Life cannot remain the same. I don’t want my beautiful child to give up, to learn that lying gets the same results as successfully meeting a challenge.

***

Which brings me to James Frey, a writer who took easy outs in order to sell a book rather than take on the challenge of selling his story as one of significance.

I read the book, A Million Little Pieces for myself, not wanting to depend on reviews. I found the book interestingly written – I’ve always enjoyed books that take literary leaps, stylistically speaking – the story was touching in places, horrifying in others. I had the advantage of knowing the controversy when I picked up the book so when I came to the part where James Frey pleads not to be sent to a maximum facility I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I kept imagining this conversation where he’s pleading not to get the electric chair (Please GOD not “Yellow Mama”!) while people around him are confused, assuring him he won’t get the chair for having an open bottle of beer in his badly-parked car.

But then…I think of my own memoir-type writings and that in order to create a story out of a snapshot memory, I had to alter some things. I mainly altered conversations because I can’t remember what was said. All I have is my impression of what happened, the essence of what happened. A few alterations therefore…might lead to a lot of them in order to fill in a lot of blanks. Not to mention the driving desire to sell books in an increasingly hard-boiled society.

I admit…I shrugged the lies off. I wasn’t reading an historical autobiography but something that was definitely literary in nature, an example of what is commonly known as “creative non-fiction.” The "true" story was presented in a decidedly, traditionally fictional manner. I was surprised by all the hoopla. I was surprised as hell that Frey took the brunt of criticism when in truth the publishers were ultimately responsible for marketing the book as “memoir/literature” without adding a disclaimer. I don’t believe for one instant that Frey, a debut writer, would have walked into the Doubleday offices with his well-worn manuscript and had the run of the house. I don’t believe for one instant the publishers were at the mercy of Frey.

The Los Angeles Times published an article addressing the question of “memoir” and truth-telling:

Such a question gets at a deep and dirty secret of the publishing industry: There is little vetting of the facts. "Publishers in general will check only for libel," says Wolfe. "For the rest they accept the author's version." Pulitzer Prize finalist Tim O'Brien, author of many books, including the 1973 memoir "If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home" (one of the earliest books to be labeled "creative nonfiction") says that when his memoir was published, "I wondered if anybody would vet it, to see if I had been in the Army. But nobody ever did. I could've just made it up."

"Publishers," argues Michael Hoyt, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, "have abandoned their role as gatekeepers. A publisher who says it doesn't matter, well…." He trails off in disbelief.

I recall a much-mocked memoir written by a famous basketball player and one written in a similar vein by a well-known reporter, both writers detailing amazing sexual exploits, the number of partners rising exponentially as the books wore on. I “knew” such details couldn’t possibly be true and yet…I don’t recall any fuss made about the obvious exaggerations. And what of the other “tell-all” books that have become so popular, the other stories of suffering and criminal lifestyles? What, they’re all “true”?

How odd it really is that Frey’s book has garnered so much attention for its falsities considering the packs of lies that are published on a routine basis without so much as a peep. And they’re not even vaguely titled, “memoirs/literature.”

Oprah filleted Frey on her show this past week. I watched about twenty minutes and couldn’t take another second of Oprah’s self-righteousness, couldn’t take her very public flogging of this writer who sat through most it looking like a proverbial deer-in-the-headlights. I found the assault unnecessary and selfish. As a note, the book has not been removed from her “Book Club.” Meaning Oprah wasn’t that incensed. Meaning Oprah isn’t interested in “truth” as much as she is interested in additional publicity.

Frey may or may not survive the backlash – I hope he does. I hope he’ll embrace his fictional abilities full throttle. I hope from now on he won’t be at the mercy of anyone or anything.

I hope he won't...lie.

Windy Nights

The wind is blowing frightfully hard here in the Los Angeles suburbs, pressing against the windows, reminding me of how terrifying this same kind of wind used to be when I lived in Pasadena with my parents. The wind was so strong once that it literally blew down a massive pine tree in our front yard, blew it down so all 90 feet of it crashed in between our house and the one next door.

We had been watching that tree in our darkened kitchen for all the electricity had gone out. My father stood at the sliding glass door with my younger brother next to him. We were talking about what would happen if that tree fell, that beautiful, pine-needle-sprinkling tree that certainly saw the development of our neighborhood back in the late 1800's. I was 18 years old and you'd think my constitution would have been stronger, way past the time when I was afraid of the dark or the boogie man. I was sitting at the kitchen table when all of a sudden my father yelled out that the tree was falling, get out! Time seemed to have stopped for me and I heard the tree literally being yanked out of the ground and crashing downwards. I had stood and turned to get out only I tripped on the chair and crashed, too, right down on the floor, imagining the house was coming down around me. My father pulled me by the arm, dragging me away from the kitchen, until I could get up and run with him outside.

I stood outside, the wind whipping around me and the tree...the tree down on the ground, huge and helpless, branches punched through the neighbors' roof, conveniently though lying right in between our two houses. Safely fallen. Miraculously fallen.

For many nights after, for years after, whenever wind blew hard against the windows, I would be overcome with an overwhelming sense of insecurity. Never before had there been a more perfect metaphor come to life for what I felt about living in the Pasadena house what with my parents' constant dramas.

When I married and moved, only when my father was near death did the wind scare me again. The fear faded only to be reinvigorated with my mother's passing. The fear receded once more. Until tonight. I'm in my office preparing for tomorrow's lecture and I'm scared of the wind as it presses the glass windows, as it makes the vent in the garage whirl wildly.

I don't wonder why I'm feeling this way, however. Last week we learned why J's behavior has so intensified, why for the past couple of months he's been making horrific choices when given options - such as choosing to shoplift a trinkette in a store when visiting the mall with a church group - such as choosing to disappear in the neighborhood with friends when making a trip from right next door back home - such as choosing to self-destruct with regard to his grades, dropping from the cursed D's to F's, even in the face of losing that which he loves most in this world, his drumset. I took him finally to be evaluated and the doctor said he's presenting classic symptoms of bipolar disorder, just like his brother, just like my mother.

For months now, J has become the primary focus of the family - becoming a mini-tornado in our home, causing disruption wherever he is, from the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes down at night, always later than we want, always in defiance.

He's made me extremely insecure.

So the wind is blowing, I'm scared and I'm grasping once again to those little things in life to make me...happy. Moments of simplicity, or peacefulness, or joy.

Sitting in my grandmother's kitchen, eating chilaquiles and drinking instant coffee, while the sun pours in from the window right onto the table, warming the both of us, warming us as we talk about the family.

Driving in the car, coming home from dinner and a visit to the car dealership, D and I talk about how good it is that we found a new car for a price that won't kill our budget, that it's all going to work out just fine. We are practically giddy.

Picking up A from school and watching him lip synch Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire". He knows all the words and it is so funny to "see" such a deep voice singing about passionate love coming from such an angelic, smiling, still-a-baby face. We both laugh and laugh all the way home while Sassy sticks her head outside the open window, lapping at the breeze.

Walking around Barnes & Noble, deciding I'm going to spend $40 on books I'll never finish. I'm joyous.

Talking about movies and television with my friend, happy...happy. Isn't Keifer a beauty? Isn't it great the Shield is back on and smokin'? Doesn't every reality show suck, suck, suck? Yes! Wasn't King Kong great and how in love am I with Juaquin Phoenix? I'm relieved for the simplicity of it all.

Thinking about writing a post on Ray's Market, the treasure trove down the road. How it looks through my children's eyes, how it will look in their eyes when they look back on it as adults. How wonderful!

The wind is pounding our trees, the windows really take it well. I'm certain no trees will fall this night.

Back in the Saddle

Ahh well...the vacation ended and I was truly sorry to see it go being that the five of us seemed to be in a nice groove, where the kids were pleased to be playing, hanging out with friends, and above all, doing homework at their own schedule as opposed to someone else's.

I end the last paragraph on a last positive note about school because boy are we back into the swing of things.

A is crying on the floor because he doesn't want to write any more descriptive words ("ankle heel" is all he will write about a foot and "artistic" is all he will write about his teacher) nor will he read another word, silently or aloud. And he refuses even though he's lost all priveleges the more he cries. We're pretty much down to water...he's allowed to drink water.

J is in his room working on some missed assignments. Well, that's what he tells us. If we question him, we're shot with, "I KNOW!!!" If we remind him that he now has two and half weeks to get "C's" in class (let me repeat...C's...C's!!!! Come on!!!!) or else we're packing up his drumset and sending that to his uncle to be put in storage until he gets those fucking C's, he says, "I KNOW!!!!"

M...ahh...little M with her curly hair and fingers in her nose and mouth, with her striped stockings and pink shorts and green shirt...she's in front of the t.v. in my room, still sleepy from her nap at school, with a chocolate milk at her side, a chocolate milk in a Sponge Bob cup that's making a ring on my cherry wood nightstand (remember those days of being newly married, walking in an expensive furniture store in Orange County, buying that set, never even dreaming that there would be a plastic cup with a talking sponge on its face marking forever that beautiful reddish wood?).

D is on the phone to our insurance company, arguing that the guy who made a u-turn in front of him is at fault and thus responsible for the $3-5,000 worth of damage to our poor 12-yr-old BMW. Our insurance company agrees...except the guy has completely lied, happy (no, thrilled) there are no witnesses to the event. We might end up in arbitration.

Me...ahh me, I'm waiting patiently for 6:00 p.m. when I have to leave for school. Thank goodness for night classes! D, of course, will have to put children to bed, a misery, yes. I will wear over my professional outfit a scarf, hand-crocheted by a student of mine in appreciation. So sweet! So considerate! Tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment with an ortho-type doctor because I've hurt my shoulder. I hurt it months ago and it's getting worse, surely something's injured. Loathe as I am to see doctors, I'm glad to finally get it looked at. Hopefully it's not some horrible, joint-eating, spine-metastasizing, liver-consuming disease or other. Unlikely, you say, yes...but it might require many weeks in a lush sanitorium, maybe by a beach. Can't wait!

Sassy, oh Sassy. Bless our little black beast, she is hiding under some pillows, chewing on a McDonald's plastic toy. She's waiting for the moment one of the kids finds her, pulls the toy away and runs, runs away with the toy, waving it about like candy.

M is at my side now, whining about something, blue nail polish I see on her fingernails, pointing to a toenail that's torn. "Aiiiii!" she squeals, followed by another sound, motioning to something else now, disappearing into the den. Oops...oh, fallen off the couch now, crying. "I hurt my fingie!" Her cries are a tad muffled by her fingers in her mouth and by Daddy's shoulder as he hugs her.

I'm off...back into the waters of suburbia. I think we're doing McDonald's for dinner, or maybe Burger King, or perhaps that free cooked chicken from the supermarket with a side of veggies.

Sadness in the Bliss household and extended Bliss family...

Damn that Vince Young! What a loss.

Okay, back to regular programming.

Happy New Year!

The rain has come, raining for the first time on the Rose Parade in fifty years. I was sorry to see that so many stations dropped coverage of the beloved parade - made me wonder about its future. I grew up in Pasadena, see, blocks away from one of the corners of the parade route. One of my earliest, most vivid, memories includes walking with my mother and small crowd of people on a typically bright January first morning to watch the parade - I can recall the height of everyone around me, the energy in the air, the peddlers of balloons, horns, cotton candy, programs - party stuff that looked so wonderful to a five-year old. The crowd I was with had been overnight guests who'd awakened in our Caltech home following a wild party thrown by my parents. Imagining back...the hangovers must have been profound. Amazing that so many would be willing to hike up Sierra Madre to Colorado Boulevard for a parade. Just goes to show the value of this particular parade. The corner that was "our corner" was towards the end of the route, meaning many floats would be in the throes of being towed. Didn't matter. The flowers and the smiles and the bands were still brilliant and captivating.

So the parade this year was rained down on. Colorado Boulevard never looked so dramatic.

Our New Years' Eve, this year, was spent with my sister and brother and their respective families. We chatted, drank, played poker, and watched the kids and dogs and woweee...we yelled a storm when 2006 hit, everyone outside, the children especially whooping it up, finally at the end of their night. The streets were busy when we drove home, the rain starting again. The kids fell asleep in the car, the hour near 1:00 a.m. when we got home. I sat awake a while longer in my pajamas, watching some mindless t.v., thinking about my resolutions, my objectives, the house blissfully quiet.

****

Clean up my office.

Be happier.

Enjoy the children more.

Write more.

Organize my pictures.

Exercise more.

Get angry less often.

Read more.

Cook more.

Spend less money.

Spend more time preparing class lectures.

Create a website for school.

Breathe deeper.

Nap more often.

****

The last day of the year was lazy. We all seemed to be moving from couch to bed to the kitchen and back to couch or bed. In the afternoon I settled into new sheets and a new, huge comforter, cuddling cozily, with M next to me. She wasn't sleeping, though, she was playing with a doll, playing doctor, wrapping my wrist with a ribbon (a bandage), putting clips in my hair, and talking softly in a doctorly voice. For at least an hour I closed my eyes, relaxing, napping. Coming to the conclusion and complete awareness that this is my favorite way to nap.

I imagine this is the way I want to live - my life a perfect blend of self-care and parenting. I hope the year brings more napping.

Happy New Year to everyone...may this year pour good fortune on all.

Happy Holidays!

Yes, yes, I know, no "holidays" with the "happy." Well, to me it is "Happy Holidays" because Christmas in my life has always been, and is now, a conglomeration of celebrations. My mother's birthday was on the 24th, M's birthday is on the 28th, Hannukah this year begins the 25th, Christmas of course is on the same day. Then there is the idea of these weeks being a secular celebration of life, light, consumerism (Yay Target and Wal-Mart, oh lovely Nordstrom's!).

This past week has been a busy one, having attended no less than three (3!) Christmas programs at each of the schools of the children. M's was the most chaotic by far, being at the pre-school where the students start at age 2. The result wasn't so much a group of angelic children on stage singing Christmas carols, but rather an explosion of running and crying children in pajamas racing to their moms and dads in the audience. Only the most mature kids (M being one of them) managed the long walk from the entrance to the stage. There was also the delightful moment where little Johnny was throwing the hay out of Baby Jesus's crib all over the set. No one interrupted him. Perhaps it was because he looked so, so very happy.

A's program was a mass of singing as well, with a performance or two on the recorder. Imagine the sound of thirty-five third-graders puffing away on their black and white plastic recorders...such harmony, such sweetness!

J's program was the pinnacle of performances in which he played the bass drum for a few songs and the snare for several others, the show a total of 35 songs by a minimum of 350 children occupying the chorus and the grand band. What a night! Junior high in its true nature. The many, many girls in the chorus looked so caught between worlds, not children, not grown, a strange set in short skirts and overly-done make-up during one string of songs, followed by a shift to pajamas, jogging arm-in-arm and throwing candy to the audience. At intermission, the girls giggled in the front of the gym in frighteningly intimidating cliques. The boys on the other hand gathered behind the gym, putting each other into trash cans and rolling the cans down the grassy hill, their wildness equally as intimidating. How amazing that they all returned at the right time to finish the program.

Busy, busy, busy! In between the programs, we attended Marie's funeral, battled awful head colds, entertained out-of-state company, attended a family reunion, and shopped and wrapped.

Today, I wrangled my kids for a photo for cards that I'll pass out at the upcoming parties. I suggested we take a walk down to the creek for a natural backdrop. That was when all hell broke loose. M wouldn't change out of her shorts and tank top. J fought like a bulldog to keep his blue gym shorts on, A was at his wit's end because M was copying him and wouldn't stop fighting for Sassy's leash. Sassy (because she is SO much a part of our family) was literally out of her mind with excitement at the prospect of a walk in the woods. Then there was D and I, griping at the children, getting a little loud, threatening spankings and groundings and a gift-less Christmas or a party-less birthday.

And it was so that we made our way across the street and down the very thick brush into the woods, noisy, crabby, with me carrying a tripod and camera, D with Sassy pulling him, the kids still fighting, refusing to cooperate. When we hit the bottom of the hill and I set the tripod down and tried...oh I tried...to take that first shot, I started to laugh at how we all must have looked. At just how noisy our walk was through the peaceful woods. Once I started to laugh, the kids caught on to the silliness and laughed too...oh yeah, it's Christmas at last!



Merry Christmas, my dear friends, and Happy, oh-so-happy Holidays from the entire Blissful Family of the Suburbs!

A Passing

We had a loss this past week - D's mother, Marie, died in her sleep following a stroke. She was 95 years old, and had lived a sweet, modest life, originating from Nebraska. She was deeply and innocently religious. The only book she read as a rule was the Bible. Her favorite verse was John 3:16, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

D is more than okay with her peaceful death, having been ready for this moment for a long time. Marie lived in a nursing home, lived mainly for sleeping and eating, and sometimes didn't recognize those around her. But she seemed to always know her boys, D and his brother, along with their older sister, MW. Whenever any of them came through the doors of the home, her face would light up with the most obvious joy.

For someone so inherently sweet, she had a few surprising instances of crabbiness that I keep with me, which always make me laugh for their sheer oppositeness of who she was. First were those times in public places when she'd say in a very loud voice (thanks to her being unable to hear very well), "My, she's fat!" or "She better lose some weight or who knows what will happen!" Then there was the day I was visiting her after the death of D's father, Bill. They'd been married many years but were not very close once they moved to the nursing home. I'd been feeling sad about Bill's death and I asked Marie if she missed him. Without missing a beat, she said in a calm voice, "No, he really was an old grouch." In the same vein, D's brother WS told us of what she said when he told her of Bill's death. Instead of crying or acting distressed, she smiled, put her hands together, and said, "Now the money's all mine!"

Marie wasn't educated, having ended school in her eighth grade year to work at her father's farm in Hastings, Nebraska. It was there that she met Bill, D's father. The two married and drove out to California to make a home. Bill made his living in the cattle business, having a side business as a butcher...but not the kind of butcher that works in a shop. He was a slaughter-man, the one who walked onto properties, shot the cow and cut it up into the requisite sides of beef. The man was strong to say the least. D remembers him as serious, brooding, and short-tempered. So his mother made up for it while Bill traveled.

Every week, despite Bill's warning not to spend money, Marie took her children to the Baptist prayer meetings at their church, followed up by dinner at a local diner, Betsy Ross. D remembers those dinners lovingly, because that was how she stood up to her husband, that was what she did to counter his rougher ways.

Monday, we'll have the funeral. It will be modest like she was, a graveside service, flowers, where she'll be laid to rest next to Bill...like she wanted, like he wanted.

Off you go, Marie, onto your next journey. May it be filled with the light you imagined.

A Blissful Christmas Season

Final exams are here now - too late for some to ever catch up with the demanding assignment roster. A student who hadn't been in class for weeks showed up for the exam two hours after the official start time of 7:30 a.m. What could I say when her list of work done was so woefully skimpy?

"It's probably not worth bothering with the exam - you don't have the points to pass, even assuming you ace the exam."

She sighed and sorta smiled, agreeing, turned on her heels and left.

It's a drag to not show up for your own life.

The past week has been hectic as usual, my little angelic M being anything but angelic (as a side note, she's taken to wanting to be called, "My little Angel" by the family and I suspect she's basing this newfound saintliness on a song they sing at the Christian pre-school she attends). M seems to be on a rampage, short-tempered, poking the dog to get her attention, screaming at everyone.

I think what she's suffering from is: Pre-Christmas Jitters. The school is preparing for a Christmas program, the boys keep talking about Christmas presents, we keep threatening the lack of Santa's visit if they all keep misbehaving, the commercials are Christmas-heavy, the house is decorated, the tree is laden with ornaments...my God, Christmas is coming!

Yes, I'm saying it, my minimalist Jewish upbringing sets far behind our mostly-secular celebration of Christmas. But...I rather love it this way. How wonderful to sit in the darkened den, the lights on the tree coloring the room with color, the scent of the tree, the coziness which eases the children into sleep. I look forward to the dinners and the gifts, the winter which will come, too.

For this, I'm more than happy to show up.

Slides on a White Sheet

Saw a great movie this evening - "Walk the Line" - really good, I was moved by the love, the journey, the pursuit of an artistic dream, the wish for safe simplicity.

Where have I been this week?

Thanksgiving was relaxed - two dinners on two days - sisters-in-law each doing the turkey, letting me do fun stuff like deadly-sugared yams and alcohol-drenched stuffing. Oh and the pumpkin pie from Marie Callendar's with luscious whipped cream. On Saturday, the day of the second dinner, my brother dragged out old slides, from when we were children, and we watched our own young faces in photos taken by my father...watched my parents' 30-something faces flash by, clicking by with no music, without the benefit of a sexy computer program to entertain us by crumpling pictures or pixelizing them as the show moved from slide to slide.

My dad loved photography and he took wonderful pictures that absolutely captured the era, their beauty, our sweetness. How well those pictures covered up the pain, the drama of their real lives, of what came later when their marriage finally blew up, emotional shrapnel whipping through all of us. B, my brother, and A, we all laughed and approved and mocked and sighed as we sat in the darkened living room, watching the shots against a wrinkled white sheet hanging along a set of drapes. The light of the projector and the sounds of the slides dropping into the lit pocket of the machine drifted throughout the room, like something ethereal, like the memories of the pictures themselves.

I left the dinner missing my father above all - missing his humor, missing the mystery of him. Among the pictures were images of a friend of theirs, JB. I recall him vividly. He lived next door to us - I remember him one time vigorously brushing his teeth, in his bathroom in his small cottage, five-year-old me watching him and asking him questions. I remember him riding a bike. He had reddish, curly hair, he spoke Spanish, and he was kind to us. I believe he loved my mother. I believe she was not averse to him either. But I don't really know the details...I wonder if it's true. What else did he see in my mother, other than the obvious? What did he think of my father? What does he remember...tell me anything, everything.

I searched for him on the internet, a quirk I have in that I know his real name. I'm tempted to write him, to ask him, "Do you remember us, do you remember them then?" I did locate him, where he works now (a professor of course at a technical university). I almost felt as if I was looking for my father...as if I'd actually found him. I was reminded of a fantasy that haunted me for the longest time after his death - the one where he never died, but had simply left, run away to start a new life. Time and time again I'd "see" him passing me by on the road in his favorite sports car, I'd swear he'd be at street corners or in the mall. I remember a time staring at the hands of a client because the hands looked so much like my father's I could barely hear the needs of the client. A trust, I think, a trust for the client and his wife. Look how he puts his hands together, look how he plays with the watch band...the hair on his arms...the cuffs folded over...

I was in a weird place on Sunday - not depressed, not sad, not peaceful, no, I was filled with a kind of anxiety that had no outlet. Something simmered within, making me impatient.

I know I'll never contact that man because to do so might destroy the fantasy that Papa is working, working well and successfully, accomplishing his dreams.

But I have to ask - why do I continue to grieve these parents of mine? Why do they lurk constantly in everything I do...I don't know.

*******

Wednesday afternoon, A lost his temper, ending up in a bit of a breakdown at the prospect of homework. Took him an entire hour to gain some self-control and calmness and once he did, it was as if nothing had happened. Earlier, his teacher just shook her head at my query as to how he was doing, "It's so hard to get him to write anything or do any math."

"Can you e-mail me...I feel like you're not keeping in good contact--"

"We have a parent-teacher conference, next week."

"Oh right...okay, we'll talk then."

Useless, helpless me.

That same afternoon, M clung to me when I tried to leave for class near six. J fussed and argued against our efforts to get him to study for a quiz. By the time I arrived at school, I felt drained, empty of anything to offer my students. Listlessly after an uninspired, thankfully-short lecture, I handed out an in-class assignment and walked the room, helping where I could. The students raised their hands for help and I went to them, answering their questions, correcting their work to better prepare them for next week's final exam. One woman called me over and kept writing as she asked me a question. An older student of Hispanic descent, she wore largish, stylish frames, and with soft hands, wrote in a halting and unsure style(how familiar those hands looked to me!). Then I noticed the skin beneath her eyes was moist, as if her eyes had watered with the hard work. I realized quickly, no, she's crying.

I put my hand on her shoulder and leaned down a tad so I could better see her face. The tears began to really flow then.

"Oh dear," I said, "You're really having a hard time, aren't you? Oh no..." I sat down immediately and went over each question with her. I'd wanted to go home but there was no way - we stayed later, late, after everyone left, and another student and I looked at a take-home assignment with her, going over everything, assuring her that she was on the right track. I helped where I could...told her she just needed more experience and that she'd get it in time.

"I can't seem to get past this point..." And the tears bubbled over once more. I felt so sorry for her - I knew that hurt - that feeling that everyone else seems to "get it". Useless, helpless me. For some reason...she reminded me of my mother. Only a few times did my mother's real-life tears move me...and this lady's tears...well, they moved me.

Back to the parents again.

The tearful student left near 10:15 p.m., still sniffling as she headed down the walkway to her car. The assisting student then asked to perform a poem for her speech class, "A power poem for a woman who works, who loves, who lives," in practice. I smiled and listened and offered praise for her hard work, for a very challenging project.

Home at 10:50 p.m. The house is quiet. The rooms are darkened with sleep. Sassy is wagging her tail at me, having met me at the door.

Sometimes, I find myself disappearing into my parent's old drama and I'm small and helpless again, waiting for them to remember me.

*******

When I was a child, my world revolved around the drama of my parents. As an adult, my world revolves around the drama of my children. All of them seem louder than me, more demanding than me. I'm sandwiched between layers of seeming, suffocating chaos. How strange that is.

*******

Christmas is coming and D put lights up on the house. We'll have a Christmas tree, we'll spend a little more money, money we don't have. Sometimes D infuriates me - little things, annoying things. I hate that we're so disparate in our artistic likes - in turn, he doesn't read what I write, other than the occasional once-over and his response is always lukewarm.

But I didn't marry him for our artistic "symbiosis." I married him because together we'd create a home with a proverbial picket fence, a colorful Christmas tree in the window, and a dog barking in the backyard. I married him because together we'd not be dramatic. And so it is relievingly mundane that in the evening we sit, legs and feet intertwined on the couch, watching a television show, or lie in bed, reading our books, or sit in a booth in a suburban restaurant, eating a steak and veggies dinner and talking about our children...how funny they are, how smart they are, how aggravating they are...did you see M with her hair in a bow and those mismatched clothes?! How much is the bill? Is this a POS...no let's use the credit card...I want dessert though. Let's be adventurous and order a Tiramisu! USC is playing UCLA this weekend...we going to Auntie's? Is that the bill? How much is it?

How funny it is we created drama out of our desperate need for simplicity, a generation beneath us.