I’m driving along Rosemead Boulevard in Arcadia, keeping pace behind a primer-grey 1970's van with rear frosted windows. A splash of red cuts across the glass on the right side and it looks like a face or blood. My stomach lurches because the more I stare at the streak, the more convinced I am that it is a child behind that glass, a stolen child. Sweat beads under my blouse and the silk sticks to my back. I press on the gas as the van picks up speed. My god, I think, I can’t see the license plate. I can’t read the letters. My god there is a child in there and he’s been kidnapped and it will be my fault if the child dies because I can’t focus on the letters and numbers.
Hell in a hand basket – this is where we’re going. I have to keep up with the van.
There were no less than five reports in our local newspaper today about local child molesters. The AP used a new term for them: seducers. The internet was the virtual alleyway where these men were caught seducing young things into watching pornography and exposing themselves using webcam. The internet is Satan’s playground and it should be shut down. Several years ago we had our very own Father Joseph arrested for fondling altar boys. He hanged himself before he got to trial. To think that a priest in our very own neighborhood was seducing young boys in front of our praying selves. On our knees we were and so were the boys.
I’m slamming on my brakes because the van has slammed on its brakes. Exhaust snakes upwards in this morning, rainy hour, wrapping itself around my car and I breathe hard with indecision. I could ram the van to open the rear doors and let the boy out. I wonder who is in there. The Smith boy? The Greenblatt boy? Maybe it’s a girl. A girl who looks like my daughter. Curly hair. Freckles across an innocent smile. Baby teeth. A beautiful, tragic package draped in a red Easter dress plastered on a photo, spread around the city.
The van turns right and I follow it, flooring it because the distance between us opened up too much. The van cuts across a lane, two lanes, and I’m right there, speeding along Foothill Boulevard and heading out of Arcadia into Monrovia. I’m missing a PTA emergency meeting on keeping children safe at the Mall. Last week’s meeting was about teenage sex. According to some parents, girls had taken to wearing short skirts, covering their laps with blankets, and letting boys touch them in class, right under the noses of teachers.
The van is stopped at a light. Following the rules. Obviously trying to avoid the police. Exhaust drifts into the traffic. I feel like honking my horn, screaming out of the window. I look at my neighbors, one putting lipstick on, another talking on a cell phone. Isn’t it obvious? The blood on the window, the child’s open mouth against the glass? They are being hauled away, torn away from mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Young lives a wreck.
Thank god I stopped that myspace thing. Thank god I stopped my son from hanging out with that kid. Horrible parents, letting their child put his picture up on myspace. Child molesters could have gotten a hold of them. Both of them. Picked up in a van and taken away forever.
The van is driving forward. I’m driving forward. We’re all driving forward. The traffic is heavy, congested. I can’t move to the side and the van, the van is caught suddenly in front of another car. I honk the horn. The old woman gets out of my way, scowling at me as I pass. She wouldn’t mind if she knew.
I honk the horn behind the van. I honk and honk. I roll down the window and point like a mad woman. I’m pointing and screaming that there is a child in the van. People at first don’t notice but then they do. Then there are several trucks nearby. Strong men in trucks. They hear me, thank god, they hear me.
I point and scream. I honk. The van pulls over, pulls into a gas station. He climbs out and he’s a Mexican. There are men on him and they drag him away from the van. Kick him. Kick him again. I’m there, screaming, demanding the van be opened. There are people all around. They are screaming that this is why we need walls on our borders. The children, they scream, the children.
The rear doors are opened at last.
The man is beaten and curled up in a corner, bloody. He deserves it – the seducer deserves it. I’m heaving with relief at having rescued the child, the boy, the girl, the young thing in a photograph.
The doors are pried open. There is nothing in the back except a bouquet of red flowers.
Red flowers pressed against glass.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
The Unreal Life
I’m done writing. I’m never going to ever write another piece for as long as I live. I’m not going to submit anything else for publication ever. I will not look to my family for stuff to write about. I will not reflect on my past.
Will not, will not, will not.
I’m reading a book called, “Digging the Vein,” about an L.A. drug addict and what’s caught my attention the most is how many typos there are. Every twenty pages or so one will pop out at me. Made me think that this was put together quickly – that someone read it and liked it but didn’t really read it, that not enough people really read it before going to press. When I’m finished I’ll throw it on top the other drug addiction books I’ve read – Permanent Midnight, Trainspotting, Candy.
I read Junky while sitting next to my mother who lay in a coma.
I read Diary of Drug Fiend while my father lay in a coma.
There I go again. Reflecting on the past.
The other night I took a late-hour trip to visit with one of my best friends. Drove the 210 to the 134 and got off at Hollywood Way. Drove to Cahuenga and pulled into the lot of the Holiday Inn Express. Waited there a bit until S came down, leaving behind the hubby and her toddler. After coffee, after some soul-warming conversation, I took her back. We chatted on couches in the lobby, “Gone in 60 Seconds” playing on the television too low for us to hear. Later, near midnight, I hugged her and said goodbye.
A young, Latino man stood outside the entrance against the wall. Just stood there, waiting for something. He watched me as I got into the car. I sat there a moment deciding how the hell I was going to get out. The lot was packed – no place to turn around. There was a set of three, skinny, bleach-blonde couples, talking and laughing, huddled near the entrance. A hand-written sign on the door said, “No Vacancies.” I decided I’d just pull forward a little, turn the wheel a tad, and drive backwards to the entrance of the lot where I could then turn around and get back on Cahuenga. It worked – got out without scraping the car.
The time was 12:30 and I took a different way home – got right onto the 101 which would eventually turn into the 10. I passed all my old exits for USC and Loyola, passed through downtown. I passed the Norris Cancer Hospital in East L.A. Passed the shut-down Sybil Brand Institute. Immediately, at seeing the hills across the freeway from Cal.State L.A., I thought about a turning point in my life – a visit to Sybil Brand, the women’s county jail, where I watched a ragged prostitute in a torn, red satin skirt get booked. I was visiting with my criminal law class from Loyola Law School. When we left her, we were treated to a throng of the most frightening women I’d ever encountered behind glass jumping up and down and mocking us. Sheer madness. The sight made me decide against becoming a public defender, a dream I’d entertained since high school. My Pasadena, privileged upbringing had rushed forth hotly and suddenly all my visions of representing the underdogs in society melted away.
I’m going the safe route, I said, I choose safety.
The rain has come again and I’m inside, feeling protected. M has just come in from outside. She wore her pink rain boots and played in the mud a little. Sassy watched from the porch, barking every so often. She has no fear, no discomfort at being wet or dirty. She’s still young, I think.
My coffee’s cold. The cereal from earlier this morning is soggy. The tests are still at my side. Showering awaits, tidying up the house awaits, and then there’s lunch, dinner…things to do…nice, safe things to do.
Fiction awaits.
Will not, will not, will not.
I’m reading a book called, “Digging the Vein,” about an L.A. drug addict and what’s caught my attention the most is how many typos there are. Every twenty pages or so one will pop out at me. Made me think that this was put together quickly – that someone read it and liked it but didn’t really read it, that not enough people really read it before going to press. When I’m finished I’ll throw it on top the other drug addiction books I’ve read – Permanent Midnight, Trainspotting, Candy.
I read Junky while sitting next to my mother who lay in a coma.
I read Diary of Drug Fiend while my father lay in a coma.
There I go again. Reflecting on the past.
The other night I took a late-hour trip to visit with one of my best friends. Drove the 210 to the 134 and got off at Hollywood Way. Drove to Cahuenga and pulled into the lot of the Holiday Inn Express. Waited there a bit until S came down, leaving behind the hubby and her toddler. After coffee, after some soul-warming conversation, I took her back. We chatted on couches in the lobby, “Gone in 60 Seconds” playing on the television too low for us to hear. Later, near midnight, I hugged her and said goodbye.
A young, Latino man stood outside the entrance against the wall. Just stood there, waiting for something. He watched me as I got into the car. I sat there a moment deciding how the hell I was going to get out. The lot was packed – no place to turn around. There was a set of three, skinny, bleach-blonde couples, talking and laughing, huddled near the entrance. A hand-written sign on the door said, “No Vacancies.” I decided I’d just pull forward a little, turn the wheel a tad, and drive backwards to the entrance of the lot where I could then turn around and get back on Cahuenga. It worked – got out without scraping the car.
The time was 12:30 and I took a different way home – got right onto the 101 which would eventually turn into the 10. I passed all my old exits for USC and Loyola, passed through downtown. I passed the Norris Cancer Hospital in East L.A. Passed the shut-down Sybil Brand Institute. Immediately, at seeing the hills across the freeway from Cal.State L.A., I thought about a turning point in my life – a visit to Sybil Brand, the women’s county jail, where I watched a ragged prostitute in a torn, red satin skirt get booked. I was visiting with my criminal law class from Loyola Law School. When we left her, we were treated to a throng of the most frightening women I’d ever encountered behind glass jumping up and down and mocking us. Sheer madness. The sight made me decide against becoming a public defender, a dream I’d entertained since high school. My Pasadena, privileged upbringing had rushed forth hotly and suddenly all my visions of representing the underdogs in society melted away.
I’m going the safe route, I said, I choose safety.
The rain has come again and I’m inside, feeling protected. M has just come in from outside. She wore her pink rain boots and played in the mud a little. Sassy watched from the porch, barking every so often. She has no fear, no discomfort at being wet or dirty. She’s still young, I think.
My coffee’s cold. The cereal from earlier this morning is soggy. The tests are still at my side. Showering awaits, tidying up the house awaits, and then there’s lunch, dinner…things to do…nice, safe things to do.
Fiction awaits.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Nothing Left
Last night, I spent a night out with D – we had dinner at a local steakhouse, I drank wine. Within the flow of alcoholic numbness I reflected about the situation with the boys. They have been combative lately, overly sensitive. I suggested we try to step back from our expectations because I notice that we get most upset when our goals (for them, for us) are not being met, whether it’s their being quiet or their doing their homework or meeting some other school obligations, or when they are acting in a way that is different from what we want in the moment. We have to put what we want aside in favor of bringing them some peace.
Simple, logical, you know?
The numbness slipped away as we walked in the misty night, holding hands, deciding what to do next with our free evening and in that nicety a jolt of guilt suddenly ran through me. I felt bad about writing so openly about the children on my blog – I felt bad about putting my personal expectations above those of the kids. A fellow blogger wrote about it recently and I understood his point because he wrote under his real name but I found I could not do what he did, I could not separate myself from my children, from the experiences I was having, pen name or not. The other day, I shared with a friend in similar circumstances an idea about gathering our essays, our reflections of being parents of unique children, into a collection of sorts. She shot down my idea hard, almost angrily. I felt terrible about even having the idea, sick about it.
Perhaps someone out there knows who Adriana Bliss really is…perhaps I’m exposing my kids’ personal problems to the world without their permission. Perhaps I’m violating their privacy. She thought so.
Maybe all my writing violates privacy. There isn’t a single person in my world that doesn’t enter into the fiction, the memoirs, the daily posts. They are my life – they are my inspiration, they are everything.
Maybe I am wrong in what I am doing. Maybe I’m a horrible person for exposing my life, their life. Maybe I need to keep silent about the reality – shove everything beneath covers, beneath a layer of suburban bliss. Maybe I need to learn to speak in metaphors. Maybe I need to appear more like all those happy mothers with perfect children – speak only of pink princesses and football-carrying heroes and cookies baked from scratch. Or better, pretend I don’t have any children or a husband. Pretend I’m someone else entirely. I’ll bury myself in complete fiction –science fiction, romance, the murder mystery.
Like the profanity…will I have nothing if I drop my life from my writing, if I protect everything and everybody from exposure?
***
Once upon a time a girl, a boy, no a dog, no…an ant crawled his way up a tall Calla Lilly, no a rose bush, no…a birch tree, wishing to see the world from other than the base level in which he lived. He climbed until he reached the top. He gasped at the vastness he saw. He’d have to tell the tale of his venture – everything he learned up until now was changed. New light revealed truths he never imagined. Infinity was possible.
That’s when a bird picked him off the branch and ate him.
Simple, logical, you know?
The numbness slipped away as we walked in the misty night, holding hands, deciding what to do next with our free evening and in that nicety a jolt of guilt suddenly ran through me. I felt bad about writing so openly about the children on my blog – I felt bad about putting my personal expectations above those of the kids. A fellow blogger wrote about it recently and I understood his point because he wrote under his real name but I found I could not do what he did, I could not separate myself from my children, from the experiences I was having, pen name or not. The other day, I shared with a friend in similar circumstances an idea about gathering our essays, our reflections of being parents of unique children, into a collection of sorts. She shot down my idea hard, almost angrily. I felt terrible about even having the idea, sick about it.
Perhaps someone out there knows who Adriana Bliss really is…perhaps I’m exposing my kids’ personal problems to the world without their permission. Perhaps I’m violating their privacy. She thought so.
Maybe all my writing violates privacy. There isn’t a single person in my world that doesn’t enter into the fiction, the memoirs, the daily posts. They are my life – they are my inspiration, they are everything.
Maybe I am wrong in what I am doing. Maybe I’m a horrible person for exposing my life, their life. Maybe I need to keep silent about the reality – shove everything beneath covers, beneath a layer of suburban bliss. Maybe I need to learn to speak in metaphors. Maybe I need to appear more like all those happy mothers with perfect children – speak only of pink princesses and football-carrying heroes and cookies baked from scratch. Or better, pretend I don’t have any children or a husband. Pretend I’m someone else entirely. I’ll bury myself in complete fiction –science fiction, romance, the murder mystery.
Like the profanity…will I have nothing if I drop my life from my writing, if I protect everything and everybody from exposure?
***
Once upon a time a girl, a boy, no a dog, no…an ant crawled his way up a tall Calla Lilly, no a rose bush, no…a birch tree, wishing to see the world from other than the base level in which he lived. He climbed until he reached the top. He gasped at the vastness he saw. He’d have to tell the tale of his venture – everything he learned up until now was changed. New light revealed truths he never imagined. Infinity was possible.
That’s when a bird picked him off the branch and ate him.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Fuck
According to the author of this article, profanity in the U.S. is on the rise. I find this a curious fact. I mean, I don’t curse that much. I do it on occasion though, to fully express my frustrations. I believe that with rising social tensions, with rising economic costs, people are increasingly frustrated. So they use bad words in response. Especially the “F” word, or as one particularly mature mother I had a run-in with said, “F-bombs.” Personally, I don't have a problem with profanity. I love all bad words, especially the "F" word. I can’t help it, the word, fuck, just says it all, you know?
For instance:
“Honey, the bill came today from the fucking psychiatrist.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yup. Fucking $650 we owe…again.”
“Well the kids have had pretty bad fucking weeks.”
“Fuck.”
“That’s why we have each other. I fucking love you.”
“I love you, my little fuck, my favorite fuckity fuck.”
You see? Now that’s real emotional expression.
Another example:
Fuck. I am not in the mood to go to work tonight. Don’t want to teach this fucking class – don’t feel like explaining this goddamned material I learned ages ago to people who’ll never actually do legal research at the level of this class nor will they ever write at the level the class strives to teach. I don’t want to do it, money or no, hell or high water. Shit, I’d like to just stay home and shoot the shit on e-mail, or watch a mindless program on television. Fucking bitch.
Still more:
As I write this, A is screaming. He’s having a bad day. Anyone who gets near him gets an earful. I say to myself instinctively in response to every outburst I hear, “Jesus fucking Christ.” I then can breathe and relax and deal with the situation in the most effective and calm manner possible.
My sincerest apologies to my dear Christian readers – please avert your delicate eyes.
And:
The other day I was checking on J’s myspace.com account. Yes, I allow him to have it because half the kids in his classes have one and it seemed a good way to keep him off the phone, a creative way to learn HTML, a fine social thing provided he keeps all private information OFF the profile pages and doesn’t answer e-mail from strangers. So on this myspace.com the kids can post “bulletins” to one another. The bulletins of all the 12-14 year olds on myspace.com ALWAYS have the word “fuck” in them – in the titles, in the body. Somewhere in the bulletin WILL be the “F-bomb,” whether appropriately used or not. Be advised, the spelling is atrocious.
Dearest Grammartist readers, avert your delicate eyes.
Take note of this darling posted early last week, “Anser thes questchuns orr u wil fucking dyee!” Please note the only word spelled correctly.
Or, “Aborshun is soooo fucking WRONG!” The “wrong” impressed me.
I quote directly. I take it as a learning experience for the young minds. They are testing out their management skills and delving into politics. Certainly, they are expressing themselves in a way that will horrify their parents, society, but isn’t it a known fact that the most effective expression of what’s in the common heart will horrify, essentially? Think burning flags, think banned art, think James Joyce as “obscenity.”
Fuck, those myspacers are bad spellers.
Oh god, the fucking time. I have to get to the shitty class to teach shitty material. I’m such a fucking bitch - they are depending on me and here I am pissing on their Wheaties.
In conclusion, I do think the cursing is superfluous as far as reading and written expression. As Joe Cormack of Fort Dodge, Iowa says in the article, "I mean, if I take [the bad words] out of your vocabulary, you've got nothin'!" On the other hand, it does make for a cheap laugh. I read the F-word and I laugh. Richard Pryor started that trend, may his soul rest in fucking peace. Today, any day, any time of the day, you can hear the funny profanity on the Comedy Channel to get a quick laugh. Oh, and I do think it releases tension (sort of like a good fuck does) which is why I think ultimately profanity is okay. Perhaps if more countries loosened up on the profanity laws, we’d have fewer wars. Maybe Iraq wouldn’t be in such uproar if they allowed their veiled women to roll out a few fucks and shits.
‘Cause you have to agree, war is a punk-ass bitch of thing.
Did I mention to you how goddamn sleepy I am?
For instance:
“Honey, the bill came today from the fucking psychiatrist.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yup. Fucking $650 we owe…again.”
“Well the kids have had pretty bad fucking weeks.”
“Fuck.”
“That’s why we have each other. I fucking love you.”
“I love you, my little fuck, my favorite fuckity fuck.”
You see? Now that’s real emotional expression.
Another example:
Fuck. I am not in the mood to go to work tonight. Don’t want to teach this fucking class – don’t feel like explaining this goddamned material I learned ages ago to people who’ll never actually do legal research at the level of this class nor will they ever write at the level the class strives to teach. I don’t want to do it, money or no, hell or high water. Shit, I’d like to just stay home and shoot the shit on e-mail, or watch a mindless program on television. Fucking bitch.
Still more:
As I write this, A is screaming. He’s having a bad day. Anyone who gets near him gets an earful. I say to myself instinctively in response to every outburst I hear, “Jesus fucking Christ.” I then can breathe and relax and deal with the situation in the most effective and calm manner possible.
My sincerest apologies to my dear Christian readers – please avert your delicate eyes.
And:
The other day I was checking on J’s myspace.com account. Yes, I allow him to have it because half the kids in his classes have one and it seemed a good way to keep him off the phone, a creative way to learn HTML, a fine social thing provided he keeps all private information OFF the profile pages and doesn’t answer e-mail from strangers. So on this myspace.com the kids can post “bulletins” to one another. The bulletins of all the 12-14 year olds on myspace.com ALWAYS have the word “fuck” in them – in the titles, in the body. Somewhere in the bulletin WILL be the “F-bomb,” whether appropriately used or not. Be advised, the spelling is atrocious.
Dearest Grammartist readers, avert your delicate eyes.
Take note of this darling posted early last week, “Anser thes questchuns orr u wil fucking dyee!” Please note the only word spelled correctly.
Or, “Aborshun is soooo fucking WRONG!” The “wrong” impressed me.
I quote directly. I take it as a learning experience for the young minds. They are testing out their management skills and delving into politics. Certainly, they are expressing themselves in a way that will horrify their parents, society, but isn’t it a known fact that the most effective expression of what’s in the common heart will horrify, essentially? Think burning flags, think banned art, think James Joyce as “obscenity.”
Fuck, those myspacers are bad spellers.
Oh god, the fucking time. I have to get to the shitty class to teach shitty material. I’m such a fucking bitch - they are depending on me and here I am pissing on their Wheaties.
In conclusion, I do think the cursing is superfluous as far as reading and written expression. As Joe Cormack of Fort Dodge, Iowa says in the article, "I mean, if I take [the bad words] out of your vocabulary, you've got nothin'!" On the other hand, it does make for a cheap laugh. I read the F-word and I laugh. Richard Pryor started that trend, may his soul rest in fucking peace. Today, any day, any time of the day, you can hear the funny profanity on the Comedy Channel to get a quick laugh. Oh, and I do think it releases tension (sort of like a good fuck does) which is why I think ultimately profanity is okay. Perhaps if more countries loosened up on the profanity laws, we’d have fewer wars. Maybe Iraq wouldn’t be in such uproar if they allowed their veiled women to roll out a few fucks and shits.
‘Cause you have to agree, war is a punk-ass bitch of thing.
Did I mention to you how goddamn sleepy I am?
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Recreation
The inability to recreate the sensation of cold when in the dead of summer or heat when in the dead of winter is a curious failing of memory. Same deficiency comes into play when trying to recall physical pain in any great detail, or severe emotional pain, when living in a state of painlessness. My mother used to tell me that women forget the agony of childbirth which is why they go on to have more children.
Well, here it is, in the middle of a Los Angeles rainstorm and I’m having a hard time coming up with the words to tell about the heat over the weekend in Palm Springs. My writing it out doesn’t sound real. I’m wearing a USC sweatshirt with cozy jeans and cozy boots with the furnace blasting while trying to talk about the sun filtering through high clouds, a sun that stung my skin when the four of us women reclined by the pool with cocktails at our side. Sadly, I only lasted twenty minutes before the inevitable redness started. I ran for cover, Bloody Mary in hand, House of leaves in another. Ran to sit under the balcony of our lower level suite where I kicked back, reading in the shade, the temperature a wonderful 80 to 85 degrees or so.
The weekend started with shopping at Cabazon – too much for my taste. After a couple of hours, JC (our good family whom we love like a sister) and I plopped down on a bench and waved Sister and T on. “Forget about us – we’ll just sit here, watching the setting sun, wishing for some wine and dinner. Please…continue.” I did manage to pick up some nice sunglasses, a couple of t-shirts, a soft stuffed bunny rabbit for M. The boys got food – goodies from Hadley’s, a local date and nut shop.
We finally got to the hotel near 7:00 p.m. We hurried and changed and headed for dinner at the Cheesecake factory – we sat at a table having split the huge dinners and discussed Oprah, Frey (yeah, yeah, really old news), G.W. Bush, the difference between addiction, discipline and willpower when it comes to checking e-mail or the Blackberry or calling in for messages. We drank our cocktails, my sister and I making sure not to overdo it because the worst thing the following morning is being sick from alcohol. We were completely successful in our efforts. We stayed up late in the room, playing Travel Scrabble, being silly as all get out.
We avoided all talk about children, having children, and husbands. Yet in the morning, what did we find out our door? A mama duck walking with her eight chicks, walking back and forth, ignoring the flight of other ducks above her, serious about her job of watching them as they swam in a small puddle.
We had a late breakfast, we went to the pool, my lovely relaxation in the shade where I was sure I’d come home with new goals in mind (better dinners, better focus, better housecleaning), the spa in the afternoon. We came to the conclusion that we did not like seeing naked women walking around – it brought out our inherent modesty. We didn’t like the steam room although the eucalyptus was lovely and breathable, but we liked the sauna. The dry heat felt good. The massages were nice – I was grateful not to have someone chatty. I liked, always like, to just listen to the new age music only, drifting in the dim lights to the feel of being nicely touched.
The rest of the night was spent in, drinking wine, snacking, playing cards, eating a light dinner, watching the late show of “Brokeback Mountain” which made all of us cry. The desperate love, we sniffled, so beautiful. Some of us seemed to know such love and some of us wished for it. Still others of us decided we didn’t like Heath Ledger’s mumbling as proven by half-way watching “Casanova” where he mumbled with an English accent.
Sunday was for sleeping in, packing up and heading home around 1:00. My sister thought two days wasn’t enough – strangely, I was ready to get home, to get back to the routine with my newfound energy. Get through the grouchy husband routine.
Now that my big weekend is over I find I have a hard time recreating in my mind the sense of no responsibility when I’m laden again. I find it hard to find that energy.
I can’t wait for the next leap away from home.
Well, here it is, in the middle of a Los Angeles rainstorm and I’m having a hard time coming up with the words to tell about the heat over the weekend in Palm Springs. My writing it out doesn’t sound real. I’m wearing a USC sweatshirt with cozy jeans and cozy boots with the furnace blasting while trying to talk about the sun filtering through high clouds, a sun that stung my skin when the four of us women reclined by the pool with cocktails at our side. Sadly, I only lasted twenty minutes before the inevitable redness started. I ran for cover, Bloody Mary in hand, House of leaves in another. Ran to sit under the balcony of our lower level suite where I kicked back, reading in the shade, the temperature a wonderful 80 to 85 degrees or so.
The weekend started with shopping at Cabazon – too much for my taste. After a couple of hours, JC (our good family whom we love like a sister) and I plopped down on a bench and waved Sister and T on. “Forget about us – we’ll just sit here, watching the setting sun, wishing for some wine and dinner. Please…continue.” I did manage to pick up some nice sunglasses, a couple of t-shirts, a soft stuffed bunny rabbit for M. The boys got food – goodies from Hadley’s, a local date and nut shop.
We finally got to the hotel near 7:00 p.m. We hurried and changed and headed for dinner at the Cheesecake factory – we sat at a table having split the huge dinners and discussed Oprah, Frey (yeah, yeah, really old news), G.W. Bush, the difference between addiction, discipline and willpower when it comes to checking e-mail or the Blackberry or calling in for messages. We drank our cocktails, my sister and I making sure not to overdo it because the worst thing the following morning is being sick from alcohol. We were completely successful in our efforts. We stayed up late in the room, playing Travel Scrabble, being silly as all get out.
We avoided all talk about children, having children, and husbands. Yet in the morning, what did we find out our door? A mama duck walking with her eight chicks, walking back and forth, ignoring the flight of other ducks above her, serious about her job of watching them as they swam in a small puddle.
We had a late breakfast, we went to the pool, my lovely relaxation in the shade where I was sure I’d come home with new goals in mind (better dinners, better focus, better housecleaning), the spa in the afternoon. We came to the conclusion that we did not like seeing naked women walking around – it brought out our inherent modesty. We didn’t like the steam room although the eucalyptus was lovely and breathable, but we liked the sauna. The dry heat felt good. The massages were nice – I was grateful not to have someone chatty. I liked, always like, to just listen to the new age music only, drifting in the dim lights to the feel of being nicely touched.
The rest of the night was spent in, drinking wine, snacking, playing cards, eating a light dinner, watching the late show of “Brokeback Mountain” which made all of us cry. The desperate love, we sniffled, so beautiful. Some of us seemed to know such love and some of us wished for it. Still others of us decided we didn’t like Heath Ledger’s mumbling as proven by half-way watching “Casanova” where he mumbled with an English accent.
Sunday was for sleeping in, packing up and heading home around 1:00. My sister thought two days wasn’t enough – strangely, I was ready to get home, to get back to the routine with my newfound energy. Get through the grouchy husband routine.
Now that my big weekend is over I find I have a hard time recreating in my mind the sense of no responsibility when I’m laden again. I find it hard to find that energy.
I can’t wait for the next leap away from home.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Running Away
My mother’s favorite song to blast on Saturday mornings from the cheap Sony stereo we had in a downstairs built-in cabinet was Engelbert Humperdinck’s song, “Please Release Me.” My father told me she’d meant it as a slam against him, a not-so-veiled effort at asking for a divorce. As her children, we understood the idea of release, the idea that she wanted to leave our Pasadena house. We assumed housecleaning was the root of her desires. I believed it was her need to go home to Mexico. On occasion, we considered the possibility that we caused her to want to flee.
The real reasons were probably more elusive that that because today, often these days, I want to leave everything and I can’t pinpoint a precise why. It’s all the above, it’s less, it’s something else entirely.
My weekend has finally arrived – I’ll get into an SUV with my sister, sister-in-law, and a family friend. We’ll have our little suitcases, packed with two days worth of stuff. Casseroles will be in the freezers, instructions written on notes and left on kitchen counters. Cell phones will be on and charged (so they can be shut off). We’ll hug our children and kiss our husbands on their noses. We’ll put the CD’s in the car stereo and feel the hot breeze coming in through the windows as we drive fast down the 210 freeway. We’ll pass into the 909 area code, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Redlands. We’ll drive through Yucaipa and Banning, and then head into Palm Springs.
The vista will change radically from the dense suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley (heavy on the urban) into the clutter-free, desert basin of the San Bernardino Mountains. We will see grand, brown fields of white, working windmills and rows and rows of electrical wires. We'll see the desert brush, the freeway without guardrails. There will be heat, a change from the recent cold of Los Angeles. We will see openness before the sharp rise of the purple-green-brown mountains. I take a deep breath as I write this, a cleansing one that runs from my lungs up into my shoulders and down through my limbs. I let go of the clutter in my mind, the junk that chokes me when I write and makes me irritable when I do the humdrum activities of running a household.
I imagine a different life – one that I chose on my own terms. I’d be living in a bungalow in Monrovia, a studio apartment in South Pasadena, or an apartment on the West Side. Would I have been bitter if unmarried? Would I have been desperate at 41 for a child of my own if I were childless? Would I have pursued my writing on a professional level? Would I be an English professor somewhere else, outside Los Angeles? Would I be sorry I hadn’t chosen law school?
Who would I be today without all the steps I’ve already taken?
I’d be funnier, I say. I have a feeling my self-esteem would be just as wrapped up in having a man love me as it is today. Sounds simplistic – there’s more to it than that. I need broad-based love and admiration. Students, friends, men. That seems to be hard-wired into me. Probably a hold-over from my mother wishing to run away from me. I’d probably be even more self-absorbed than I already am – I credit having children to a development of selflessness. I’d be angrier maybe about my parents’ early deaths.
I will breathe easier this weekend. I will write on my laptop and maybe in my notebook. Write with a pen, taking the time to spell out words instead of tapping madly to get them on the screen. I will read a little. I will laugh and drink and gossip. I will embrace the sensation of not being needed for long hours at a time. Two nights of nobody asking me to do anything other than, “Sit next to me,” “You want to eat here or there,” “Your massage is scheduled for three o’clock with big-muscled, non-gay Sven,” “Are you sleepy?”
Excellent.
What am I running from? Responsibility, maybe. The children. The dirty house. The noise. The choices I made with my quickly-passing life. The abandonment of what *I* wanted as opposed to what everyone else wanted, or what my logic told me was the right thing to do. Hard-in-coming satisfaction and contentment. Disappointing love. Love that disappoints? How is that possible? The built up inability to accept love. Proverbial walls built up around me to protect me against inevitable loss because believe me that will happen so I do the cutting of ties. I push away and then cry that love has been disappointing.
What am I running from? What am I always running from? I’m running from me. Gasp! Ancient epiphany. Cliché even. “Please Release Me,” my mother said. Release her from the life she’d chosen, from who she had become. Yes, I understand that. The big joke is … we can’t really run away from ourselves. We will follow US everywhere.
Salud! Cheers! Have a good weekend. I will return on Sunday, refreshed and miserable and happy to be blogging once again.
The real reasons were probably more elusive that that because today, often these days, I want to leave everything and I can’t pinpoint a precise why. It’s all the above, it’s less, it’s something else entirely.
My weekend has finally arrived – I’ll get into an SUV with my sister, sister-in-law, and a family friend. We’ll have our little suitcases, packed with two days worth of stuff. Casseroles will be in the freezers, instructions written on notes and left on kitchen counters. Cell phones will be on and charged (so they can be shut off). We’ll hug our children and kiss our husbands on their noses. We’ll put the CD’s in the car stereo and feel the hot breeze coming in through the windows as we drive fast down the 210 freeway. We’ll pass into the 909 area code, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Redlands. We’ll drive through Yucaipa and Banning, and then head into Palm Springs.
The vista will change radically from the dense suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley (heavy on the urban) into the clutter-free, desert basin of the San Bernardino Mountains. We will see grand, brown fields of white, working windmills and rows and rows of electrical wires. We'll see the desert brush, the freeway without guardrails. There will be heat, a change from the recent cold of Los Angeles. We will see openness before the sharp rise of the purple-green-brown mountains. I take a deep breath as I write this, a cleansing one that runs from my lungs up into my shoulders and down through my limbs. I let go of the clutter in my mind, the junk that chokes me when I write and makes me irritable when I do the humdrum activities of running a household.
I imagine a different life – one that I chose on my own terms. I’d be living in a bungalow in Monrovia, a studio apartment in South Pasadena, or an apartment on the West Side. Would I have been bitter if unmarried? Would I have been desperate at 41 for a child of my own if I were childless? Would I have pursued my writing on a professional level? Would I be an English professor somewhere else, outside Los Angeles? Would I be sorry I hadn’t chosen law school?
Who would I be today without all the steps I’ve already taken?
I’d be funnier, I say. I have a feeling my self-esteem would be just as wrapped up in having a man love me as it is today. Sounds simplistic – there’s more to it than that. I need broad-based love and admiration. Students, friends, men. That seems to be hard-wired into me. Probably a hold-over from my mother wishing to run away from me. I’d probably be even more self-absorbed than I already am – I credit having children to a development of selflessness. I’d be angrier maybe about my parents’ early deaths.
I will breathe easier this weekend. I will write on my laptop and maybe in my notebook. Write with a pen, taking the time to spell out words instead of tapping madly to get them on the screen. I will read a little. I will laugh and drink and gossip. I will embrace the sensation of not being needed for long hours at a time. Two nights of nobody asking me to do anything other than, “Sit next to me,” “You want to eat here or there,” “Your massage is scheduled for three o’clock with big-muscled, non-gay Sven,” “Are you sleepy?”
Excellent.
What am I running from? Responsibility, maybe. The children. The dirty house. The noise. The choices I made with my quickly-passing life. The abandonment of what *I* wanted as opposed to what everyone else wanted, or what my logic told me was the right thing to do. Hard-in-coming satisfaction and contentment. Disappointing love. Love that disappoints? How is that possible? The built up inability to accept love. Proverbial walls built up around me to protect me against inevitable loss because believe me that will happen so I do the cutting of ties. I push away and then cry that love has been disappointing.
What am I running from? What am I always running from? I’m running from me. Gasp! Ancient epiphany. Cliché even. “Please Release Me,” my mother said. Release her from the life she’d chosen, from who she had become. Yes, I understand that. The big joke is … we can’t really run away from ourselves. We will follow US everywhere.
Salud! Cheers! Have a good weekend. I will return on Sunday, refreshed and miserable and happy to be blogging once again.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Embracing Our Inner Lila
The medications are lined up on the window sill in our kitchen: anti-inflammatory pills for the bursitis in my shoulder, mood stabilizers, ADD medications and medication to reduce tics for the boys, antibiotics and Benedryl for the girl, three different blood pressure medications and Bayer for D, stomach and skin pills for the dog. That doesn’t include the stuff that lies all over the house: Aleve, Advil, Tylenol, Motrin, Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Motrin (chewable and liquid form), various cough syrups prescribed to me and the children over the past year, nighttime cold medicines, daytime cold medicines, children’s cold medicines (nighttime and daytime), a nose spray for D that doesn’t interfere with his prescribed medications, Prylosec, Pepcid, Mylanta, Tums, and the beloved bottle of leftover Vicodin that’s now down to the one pill. I’m saving that for a special night.
We are a medicated family – we believe in the power of modern medicine. Have an ache? Take a pill! Have a serious mental illness? Take a pill! Just enjoy the general idea of pill-popping? Take a pill!
We knew we had issues when M asked me in her little five-year-old voice, mispronouncing 'pills,' “Mama, when do I get to take the same pillows A and J take?”
“Oh honey, I’m sure when you hit third grade the bipolar will kick in and you’ll be just like everyone else in the house!”
“I can’t wait, Mama!”
“Me neither, honey!”
We grab hands and dance a jig, Sassy nipping at our ankles.
My mother was a medication fiend – for a while there she was a full-blown, live version of “Valley of the Dolls.” She had pills for everything, mostly imagined maladies. She went to several doctors, each of whom prescribed her a new medication or more medication for her latest problem. Big on the Valium. The worst experience (no, one of several drug-related incidents I recall) was when my sister and I found her laid out on her bed in just her underwear, relatively unconscious. She mumbled a few words, snored loudly, and had wet the bed. We called an ambulance. Lots of drama. My grandparents drove like mad folks to the emergency room. My father drove through horrible Los Angeles traffic from USC to Huntington Memorial. She was in a “coma.” The doctors…let me emphasize, the DOCTORS (twenty-thousand years of medical training under their belts) sat us down to inform us in the most solemn of tones that they did not know what was wrong with her, that they suspected a massive stroke.
My sister and broke out into muted laughter to the absolute horror of my grandparents (my father sort of tilted his head, nodded, in semi-agreement with us), “She hasn’t had a stroke…she’s overdosed on prescription pills and the finest tequila this side of the Rio Grande! What’s WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!”
The doctors got very uncomfortable at that point and ordered a slew of toxicology tests. And of course we were correct in our medical diagnosis. She landed in a 72-hour psych-hold where she convinced the doctors her family poisoned her and they let her go. Oh no, no evidence of psychosis there! Poor thing – I’m sorry really that no doctor ever got past her beauty and seductive ways to properly diagnose her: bipolar disorder I, the heavy duty BPD, the one where a person can move from grandiosity and euphoria to suicidal ideation all within mere hours. At the time they called it, manic-depressive disorder.
Dearest mama.
Today, whenever any of the three of us get a little loopy on alcohol or whatever other substance might be lying around, or whenever we allow ourselves to sink into dramatic misery, we say we are embracing our “inner Lila.” Lila was our mother’s nickname. To embrace that part of us is to love her, is to appreciate the part of her we thought we hated.
What do they say about looking in a mirror?
On Monday, M came down with an ear infection, swimmer’s ear actually from playing mermaid one too many times in the bathtub. After the appointment (where A, M, and I played a great game of charades – another post for another time), prescription for ear medication in hand, I thought I should go ahead and fill the boys’ prescriptions too while I was at it. I picked up a couple of candy bars for my private stash in my room (where I keep other drugs: Girl Scout Cookies, real Bubble Gum, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, a symbolic amount of pot). When the pharmacist rang up all the goodies, when he put in the amounts of the co-pays (we have the best insurance this side of … Pomona), he handed me a bill of $114.00.
“One hundred and WHAT?!” The DH screamed through the cell phone (a free call, mobile-to-mobile – thank you Verizon!).
“She has an ear infection, honey.”
“You know we already owe the psychiatrist $650.”
“He’s off the plan.”
“He needs to be OFF the plan.”
When I get home, the battle of the homework begins, A’s homework the biggest problem of all. M wants to play on the computer but J is playing the drums (practicing his latest in punk rock beats – the louder, the better!). She screams at the top of her lungs to shut up (and I mean, SCREAM). A lays down on the bench at the table, claiming to have sleeping sickness. The dog has gotten into the trash. The DH arrives shortly thereafter and launches into a rousing version of, “Why the hell didn’t anyone empty the dishwasher for the next load that’s stinking up the sink?!” It’s a familiar tune and I shrug…
“I don’t know, honey. Want a beer?”
“I don’t drink, you know that.”
“Yeah, well, I do.”
I cut up a lemon, stick a wedge into the Corona, and sprinkle salt on the bottle’s rim. I pop a Pepcid because the alcohol in conjunction with the stress of the afternoon will trigger acid reflux that I’ve had since I was a kid. I wonder if I have esophageal cancer. If I have it, I’m doomed.
D takes his dosage of blood pressure pills and flips through the mail, then heads off to do laundry.
The boys drink soda and eat some chips in front of the T.V., abandoning the homework.
M gathers her makeup and purses and hair decorations to play hair salon.
The dog runs out the back door and begins digging a hole to China.
I plop myself at the computer, sip my beer, and blog. Look at retreats.
We’re all medicated.
We are a medicated family – we believe in the power of modern medicine. Have an ache? Take a pill! Have a serious mental illness? Take a pill! Just enjoy the general idea of pill-popping? Take a pill!
We knew we had issues when M asked me in her little five-year-old voice, mispronouncing 'pills,' “Mama, when do I get to take the same pillows A and J take?”
“Oh honey, I’m sure when you hit third grade the bipolar will kick in and you’ll be just like everyone else in the house!”
“I can’t wait, Mama!”
“Me neither, honey!”
We grab hands and dance a jig, Sassy nipping at our ankles.
My mother was a medication fiend – for a while there she was a full-blown, live version of “Valley of the Dolls.” She had pills for everything, mostly imagined maladies. She went to several doctors, each of whom prescribed her a new medication or more medication for her latest problem. Big on the Valium. The worst experience (no, one of several drug-related incidents I recall) was when my sister and I found her laid out on her bed in just her underwear, relatively unconscious. She mumbled a few words, snored loudly, and had wet the bed. We called an ambulance. Lots of drama. My grandparents drove like mad folks to the emergency room. My father drove through horrible Los Angeles traffic from USC to Huntington Memorial. She was in a “coma.” The doctors…let me emphasize, the DOCTORS (twenty-thousand years of medical training under their belts) sat us down to inform us in the most solemn of tones that they did not know what was wrong with her, that they suspected a massive stroke.
My sister and broke out into muted laughter to the absolute horror of my grandparents (my father sort of tilted his head, nodded, in semi-agreement with us), “She hasn’t had a stroke…she’s overdosed on prescription pills and the finest tequila this side of the Rio Grande! What’s WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!”
The doctors got very uncomfortable at that point and ordered a slew of toxicology tests. And of course we were correct in our medical diagnosis. She landed in a 72-hour psych-hold where she convinced the doctors her family poisoned her and they let her go. Oh no, no evidence of psychosis there! Poor thing – I’m sorry really that no doctor ever got past her beauty and seductive ways to properly diagnose her: bipolar disorder I, the heavy duty BPD, the one where a person can move from grandiosity and euphoria to suicidal ideation all within mere hours. At the time they called it, manic-depressive disorder.
Dearest mama.
Today, whenever any of the three of us get a little loopy on alcohol or whatever other substance might be lying around, or whenever we allow ourselves to sink into dramatic misery, we say we are embracing our “inner Lila.” Lila was our mother’s nickname. To embrace that part of us is to love her, is to appreciate the part of her we thought we hated.
What do they say about looking in a mirror?
On Monday, M came down with an ear infection, swimmer’s ear actually from playing mermaid one too many times in the bathtub. After the appointment (where A, M, and I played a great game of charades – another post for another time), prescription for ear medication in hand, I thought I should go ahead and fill the boys’ prescriptions too while I was at it. I picked up a couple of candy bars for my private stash in my room (where I keep other drugs: Girl Scout Cookies, real Bubble Gum, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, a symbolic amount of pot). When the pharmacist rang up all the goodies, when he put in the amounts of the co-pays (we have the best insurance this side of … Pomona), he handed me a bill of $114.00.
“One hundred and WHAT?!” The DH screamed through the cell phone (a free call, mobile-to-mobile – thank you Verizon!).
“She has an ear infection, honey.”
“You know we already owe the psychiatrist $650.”
“He’s off the plan.”
“He needs to be OFF the plan.”
When I get home, the battle of the homework begins, A’s homework the biggest problem of all. M wants to play on the computer but J is playing the drums (practicing his latest in punk rock beats – the louder, the better!). She screams at the top of her lungs to shut up (and I mean, SCREAM). A lays down on the bench at the table, claiming to have sleeping sickness. The dog has gotten into the trash. The DH arrives shortly thereafter and launches into a rousing version of, “Why the hell didn’t anyone empty the dishwasher for the next load that’s stinking up the sink?!” It’s a familiar tune and I shrug…
“I don’t know, honey. Want a beer?”
“I don’t drink, you know that.”
“Yeah, well, I do.”
I cut up a lemon, stick a wedge into the Corona, and sprinkle salt on the bottle’s rim. I pop a Pepcid because the alcohol in conjunction with the stress of the afternoon will trigger acid reflux that I’ve had since I was a kid. I wonder if I have esophageal cancer. If I have it, I’m doomed.
D takes his dosage of blood pressure pills and flips through the mail, then heads off to do laundry.
The boys drink soda and eat some chips in front of the T.V., abandoning the homework.
M gathers her makeup and purses and hair decorations to play hair salon.
The dog runs out the back door and begins digging a hole to China.
I plop myself at the computer, sip my beer, and blog. Look at retreats.
We’re all medicated.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Normal
Boys are jamming in the office – J on the drums, Friend 1 on the lead guitar, Friend 2 doing the vocals. The music is loud with a heavy-on-the-crash beat. They’re playing the Ramones. M is near me in my room and she’s trying on various boots and shoes from the closet, asking me every so often, “Am I beautiful?” I’m preparing for class – typing out an outline for Civil Procedure, a chapter on examination of physical evidence. A is playing a video game in his room, kicking back against a tiny futon couch. The DH is reading the paper as he eats a turkey sandwich, mustard only. Sassy, the dog, is sitting on the bench at the table, watching the DH’s food as it travels from the dish to his mouth.
Normal, normal as can be.
The sky is cloudy, gray-blue-yellow light breaking through the lace in the kitchen. The hours click away as I move from the outline to a short story to grading a couple of papers, back to the outline. The kids change activities – boys are outside skateboarding, A has moved to the computer, M has begun to watch a movie, and the DH is doing laundry.
My sister calls, upset at me about something insensitive I said the other day. This is a rarity – we never do this. I find myself tearful because what upset her had nothing to do with her, but was all about me – my own bitterness sneaking out. She caught the underlying hurt, but still took it as a personal attack which it hadn’t been. We resolve the problem but the disruption to our constantly smooth relationship sticks to the roof of my mouth.
The friends leave, J alone now and on a tear for permission to go to the movies with a girl. She’s in seventh grade and we don’t know her or her parents. Although we don’t suspect this is a “date,” we’re not open to the idea at all. He’s furious with us, throwing things, breaking something, saying he doesn’t like us and wishes we were normal because, you know, every other parent lets their seventh graders hang out with their friends of the opposite sex in public, darkened places in bad parts of the suburbs unsupervised.
We are abnormal.
The DH escalates the fight, beginning to rage himself, which always sends me in the opposite direction – I get hyper-calm.
J has come running into my room, hiding from his angry father, as I sit on my bed with my laptop, tapping away. I’ve been ignoring the battle in the living room. I glance up and he turns to me, his longish hair standing on end with tension, “When are you going to be normal parents?!”
“When you’re normal, dear.”
Sounds bad, sounds like I’ve said an evil thing – sounds like I’ve gone against every parenting manual out there. I throw in a soft, reassuring, “Honey, look, you’re just in a phase right now where you’re making poor decisions when outside our watch.”
“I don’t care about getting in trouble!”
“I know you don’t – which is why we’re stepping in and caring about you getting in trouble for you. We love you much too much to let anything happen to you.”
“Who cares?! It’s my life!”
“Not until you’re 18. In the meantime, any bad choice you make comes back to us. Fines, parenting classes, even jail time. Your want your parents in jail? I didn’t think so. Who’d buy you your decks, your $38 t-shirts, your Hot Cheetos? Your decisions affect us, affect our home. So we have to make sure you don’t make bad decisions. Until then, you’re home today due to your refusal to do your weekend homework and your rude talk to us.”
There is some more raging but soon the house quiets. He retreats to his room and flips on the television. The DH starts cleaning out the boys’ dresser. M and A battle over computer time. I peek in on e-mail messages, get something good, but can’t answer because “Alphabet Express” is on. I chase A off the computer – he’s had plenty of time on. M sits happily and starts to play, asking for snacks and a drink in the most princess-like manner. I serve her and go to the bedroom for continued typing of the outline on my laptop, interrupted required work with the writing of this blog post and more playing around with a short story.
Normal, normal as can be.
Normal, normal as can be.
The sky is cloudy, gray-blue-yellow light breaking through the lace in the kitchen. The hours click away as I move from the outline to a short story to grading a couple of papers, back to the outline. The kids change activities – boys are outside skateboarding, A has moved to the computer, M has begun to watch a movie, and the DH is doing laundry.
My sister calls, upset at me about something insensitive I said the other day. This is a rarity – we never do this. I find myself tearful because what upset her had nothing to do with her, but was all about me – my own bitterness sneaking out. She caught the underlying hurt, but still took it as a personal attack which it hadn’t been. We resolve the problem but the disruption to our constantly smooth relationship sticks to the roof of my mouth.
The friends leave, J alone now and on a tear for permission to go to the movies with a girl. She’s in seventh grade and we don’t know her or her parents. Although we don’t suspect this is a “date,” we’re not open to the idea at all. He’s furious with us, throwing things, breaking something, saying he doesn’t like us and wishes we were normal because, you know, every other parent lets their seventh graders hang out with their friends of the opposite sex in public, darkened places in bad parts of the suburbs unsupervised.
We are abnormal.
The DH escalates the fight, beginning to rage himself, which always sends me in the opposite direction – I get hyper-calm.
J has come running into my room, hiding from his angry father, as I sit on my bed with my laptop, tapping away. I’ve been ignoring the battle in the living room. I glance up and he turns to me, his longish hair standing on end with tension, “When are you going to be normal parents?!”
“When you’re normal, dear.”
Sounds bad, sounds like I’ve said an evil thing – sounds like I’ve gone against every parenting manual out there. I throw in a soft, reassuring, “Honey, look, you’re just in a phase right now where you’re making poor decisions when outside our watch.”
“I don’t care about getting in trouble!”
“I know you don’t – which is why we’re stepping in and caring about you getting in trouble for you. We love you much too much to let anything happen to you.”
“Who cares?! It’s my life!”
“Not until you’re 18. In the meantime, any bad choice you make comes back to us. Fines, parenting classes, even jail time. Your want your parents in jail? I didn’t think so. Who’d buy you your decks, your $38 t-shirts, your Hot Cheetos? Your decisions affect us, affect our home. So we have to make sure you don’t make bad decisions. Until then, you’re home today due to your refusal to do your weekend homework and your rude talk to us.”
There is some more raging but soon the house quiets. He retreats to his room and flips on the television. The DH starts cleaning out the boys’ dresser. M and A battle over computer time. I peek in on e-mail messages, get something good, but can’t answer because “Alphabet Express” is on. I chase A off the computer – he’s had plenty of time on. M sits happily and starts to play, asking for snacks and a drink in the most princess-like manner. I serve her and go to the bedroom for continued typing of the outline on my laptop, interrupted required work with the writing of this blog post and more playing around with a short story.
Normal, normal as can be.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Johnny
Rachel lived near U.S.C. off of Western in a modest beige bungalow that hadn’t been painted since the Watts Riots. A mass of miniature palm trees, yucca trees, and camellia bushes packed the front yard. Getting to the front door was an act of ducking the green and whipping away the gnats. Tall stacks of newspapers crowded the porch and a skinny grey cat mewed at me from an old stand-alone swing.
The assignment was to talk to her for a short while, spend “quality time” with her. She was lonely – her husband had died years and years before and she had no children. The director of the Joint Educational Project told me she was nearing 88 and her health wasn’t good.
I knocked on the screen door, able to see inside the cluttered house. A billowing woman wearing a print housecoat shuffled from behind a wall-papered wall, coming to the door. She couldn’t have been more than five foot two, smiling, wearing bright-red lipstick. Her white hair was just as puffy as she was, brushed carefully into a quasi-bouffant, a pink-bow barrette to the side. Her eyes were moist and blue and she seemed so, so happy to have company.
She ushered me in and took my bag from me, laying it down next to an empty planter in the entranceway. She chattered, thinking I was from the synagogue she could no longer attend, but when I corrected her she remembered that she was approached by someone from the college.
“Oh yes,” she said, “such nice people.”
The kitchen was as ancient as her house – appliances, a table and chairs dating back to the fifties, green tiles, and plain cupboards painted yellow. She had a toaster covered by chicken-fabric. She stood at the counter on a small stool to bring down cookies. She arranged them on a plate and poured milk into two purple glasses that looked eerily similar to glasses my mother once got as a promotion from a gas station.
I asked her how long she lived in the house.
“Johnny and I bought this house in 1942. We thought it was the most beautiful house on the block. A real nice lawn in front. We loved to work in the garden. This is Johnny.”
With a serene smile on her face, she reached across the table and showed me a picture of a man in his 60’s maybe – white hair brushed to the side, wearing black-rimmed glasses. The color picture had faded as if she kept the framed shot in the sun. I took the picture into my hands and nodded appreciatively.
“He looks like a very nice person.”
“He was so smart – he was an engineer. Worked for the city. He used to take me to all the buildings he worked at. He died of pneumonia.” Her face changed a little, but then she resumed the smile again. She ate a cookie, taking small bites at a time. I ate, too, drinking some milk to wash down the basic chocolate chip.
We talked some more and then she wanted to share something with me. She shuffled away and for the first time I noticed her slippers, pink and fluffy. When she returned, she had a cassette in her hand. She sat down at her seat and put the tape into a black tape recorder. She pressed the play button, her face serious, anticipating what she’d hear.
A man’s voice crackled out of the recorder – he was singing something I didn’t recognize. Sounded like a folk song. Rachel lit up, looking at me.
“Doesn’t he have a beautiful voice?”
“Yes, he does,” I said.
The song ended and he laughed, making a comment about the machine. “Rachel what do I push? My Rachel, you can do these things better than me.”
“Oh Johnny!”
She laughed along with herself on the tape. “Johnny always made me laugh.”
“You’re my life, honey. Come and sing with me. I’m not the only one who’s going to be a fool on this machine.”
“You couldn’t be a fool, Johnny.”
“I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too.”
The two laughed together on the tape and then Rachel shut the recorder off, smiling at me. “This is the only thing I have left of my Johnny. I listen to him every day, whenever I feel like I miss him.”
She pressed a red-painted fingernail on the machine. We listened to Johnny talking about work and about his parents. How they lived in New York City in the Bronx and had died in the fifties. The tape showed a sliver of a tender and lasting relationship between two people alone in this life – she still hadn’t let go of him. I couldn’t blame her. I took a furtive glance at the living room seeing a house full of collections. Old radios lined shelves, curio cabinets overflowed with porcelain trinkets, and throw rugs draped the furniture and floors.
We talked about Rachel’s schedule which wasn’t much. Get up in the morning, shower, dress for the day. Make breakfast for herself. Clean the house a little. Not so much anymore. Not with her arthritis and heart problems. Lunch. Listen to Johnny. A girl from the synagogue brought groceries twice a week. I’m lonely, she said. I miss conversation, she said.
I checked my watch and smoothed my skirt and blouse, smiling at Rachel, telling her in turn about my schedule. I said I know love, but not like yours.
“Nobody’s like Johnny.”
“No,” I agreed, taking her hand in mine.
I glanced up at the clock on her wall, a plain one with black hands and red second hand, and the hour told me it was time to go. Our time was up. She walked me to the door and I shook her hand. I’d be back next week. This was lovely, I told her.
“Thank you,” I said, “For telling me about Johnny.”
“I miss him so much.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
She smiled and I stepped out the door into the wild brush along the walkway, hearing the door slam gently against the frame. I turned and waved and she waved back, her form shadowed behind the screen.
We met only a few times more, each time, Johnny’s crooning accompanying our conversation. The last time I saw her was a rare rainy day in Los Angeles, water pouring onto her porch due to clogged drain pipes, the cat nowhere to be seen. Rachel was in tears when she opened the door for me. Someone had broken into her house when she was at a doctor’s appointment and had taken her tape recorder with the tape still inside.
There was nothing I could do or say to console her. I held her hand as she cried and cried. She’d lost Johnny.
My assignment had ended. The next person I was given was a brisk ninety-five year old woman who used the students from U.S.C. to shuttle her around like a taxi service – against the rules due to liability issues. The director warned me not to let her suck me into her schedule. I got sucked in, taking her to a doctor or two, to the store once or twice. The next job, the last one before I abandoned the idea of being a social worker, had been to volunteer at St. John of God’s convalescent hospital on West Adams Boulevard with Alzheimer patients who often had forgotten love, along with everything else that mattered in a daily life. I pushed the patients around in their wheel chairs in the garden or fed them their lunches.
I thought for a long while after that perhaps forgetting was better than remembering.
The assignment was to talk to her for a short while, spend “quality time” with her. She was lonely – her husband had died years and years before and she had no children. The director of the Joint Educational Project told me she was nearing 88 and her health wasn’t good.
I knocked on the screen door, able to see inside the cluttered house. A billowing woman wearing a print housecoat shuffled from behind a wall-papered wall, coming to the door. She couldn’t have been more than five foot two, smiling, wearing bright-red lipstick. Her white hair was just as puffy as she was, brushed carefully into a quasi-bouffant, a pink-bow barrette to the side. Her eyes were moist and blue and she seemed so, so happy to have company.
She ushered me in and took my bag from me, laying it down next to an empty planter in the entranceway. She chattered, thinking I was from the synagogue she could no longer attend, but when I corrected her she remembered that she was approached by someone from the college.
“Oh yes,” she said, “such nice people.”
The kitchen was as ancient as her house – appliances, a table and chairs dating back to the fifties, green tiles, and plain cupboards painted yellow. She had a toaster covered by chicken-fabric. She stood at the counter on a small stool to bring down cookies. She arranged them on a plate and poured milk into two purple glasses that looked eerily similar to glasses my mother once got as a promotion from a gas station.
I asked her how long she lived in the house.
“Johnny and I bought this house in 1942. We thought it was the most beautiful house on the block. A real nice lawn in front. We loved to work in the garden. This is Johnny.”
With a serene smile on her face, she reached across the table and showed me a picture of a man in his 60’s maybe – white hair brushed to the side, wearing black-rimmed glasses. The color picture had faded as if she kept the framed shot in the sun. I took the picture into my hands and nodded appreciatively.
“He looks like a very nice person.”
“He was so smart – he was an engineer. Worked for the city. He used to take me to all the buildings he worked at. He died of pneumonia.” Her face changed a little, but then she resumed the smile again. She ate a cookie, taking small bites at a time. I ate, too, drinking some milk to wash down the basic chocolate chip.
We talked some more and then she wanted to share something with me. She shuffled away and for the first time I noticed her slippers, pink and fluffy. When she returned, she had a cassette in her hand. She sat down at her seat and put the tape into a black tape recorder. She pressed the play button, her face serious, anticipating what she’d hear.
A man’s voice crackled out of the recorder – he was singing something I didn’t recognize. Sounded like a folk song. Rachel lit up, looking at me.
“Doesn’t he have a beautiful voice?”
“Yes, he does,” I said.
The song ended and he laughed, making a comment about the machine. “Rachel what do I push? My Rachel, you can do these things better than me.”
“Oh Johnny!”
She laughed along with herself on the tape. “Johnny always made me laugh.”
“You’re my life, honey. Come and sing with me. I’m not the only one who’s going to be a fool on this machine.”
“You couldn’t be a fool, Johnny.”
“I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too.”
The two laughed together on the tape and then Rachel shut the recorder off, smiling at me. “This is the only thing I have left of my Johnny. I listen to him every day, whenever I feel like I miss him.”
She pressed a red-painted fingernail on the machine. We listened to Johnny talking about work and about his parents. How they lived in New York City in the Bronx and had died in the fifties. The tape showed a sliver of a tender and lasting relationship between two people alone in this life – she still hadn’t let go of him. I couldn’t blame her. I took a furtive glance at the living room seeing a house full of collections. Old radios lined shelves, curio cabinets overflowed with porcelain trinkets, and throw rugs draped the furniture and floors.
We talked about Rachel’s schedule which wasn’t much. Get up in the morning, shower, dress for the day. Make breakfast for herself. Clean the house a little. Not so much anymore. Not with her arthritis and heart problems. Lunch. Listen to Johnny. A girl from the synagogue brought groceries twice a week. I’m lonely, she said. I miss conversation, she said.
I checked my watch and smoothed my skirt and blouse, smiling at Rachel, telling her in turn about my schedule. I said I know love, but not like yours.
“Nobody’s like Johnny.”
“No,” I agreed, taking her hand in mine.
I glanced up at the clock on her wall, a plain one with black hands and red second hand, and the hour told me it was time to go. Our time was up. She walked me to the door and I shook her hand. I’d be back next week. This was lovely, I told her.
“Thank you,” I said, “For telling me about Johnny.”
“I miss him so much.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
She smiled and I stepped out the door into the wild brush along the walkway, hearing the door slam gently against the frame. I turned and waved and she waved back, her form shadowed behind the screen.
We met only a few times more, each time, Johnny’s crooning accompanying our conversation. The last time I saw her was a rare rainy day in Los Angeles, water pouring onto her porch due to clogged drain pipes, the cat nowhere to be seen. Rachel was in tears when she opened the door for me. Someone had broken into her house when she was at a doctor’s appointment and had taken her tape recorder with the tape still inside.
There was nothing I could do or say to console her. I held her hand as she cried and cried. She’d lost Johnny.
My assignment had ended. The next person I was given was a brisk ninety-five year old woman who used the students from U.S.C. to shuttle her around like a taxi service – against the rules due to liability issues. The director warned me not to let her suck me into her schedule. I got sucked in, taking her to a doctor or two, to the store once or twice. The next job, the last one before I abandoned the idea of being a social worker, had been to volunteer at St. John of God’s convalescent hospital on West Adams Boulevard with Alzheimer patients who often had forgotten love, along with everything else that mattered in a daily life. I pushed the patients around in their wheel chairs in the garden or fed them their lunches.
I thought for a long while after that perhaps forgetting was better than remembering.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Impingement
Snow laces the San Gabriel Mountains and is a pleasant shock as I drive up out of the sunken road that leads away from my neighborhood. My two younger kids, M and A, say, “Ooooo…can we go see snow?” as we push on through the traffic to school. One by one I drop them off, my coffee warming in the electric mug the husband bought for me. A cool little device – it hooks up to the cigarette lighter connecting mug to electric juice. Perfect for school days when I have to drop off kids and then head off to the college to teach my morning classes. Normally by the time I get there, coffee’s gone cold. Problem solved by cool gadget.
The college is on spring break this week – I was really looking forward to quiet days in the house with all the children gone. Today, my first day of freedom (relatively speaking of course), my eldest announces he’s far too sick to attend classes. I gave into his pleas because I wasn’t interested in fighting him, because he did have a runny nose according to the husband, and because I was going to be home anyway meaning I wouldn’t have to worry about him being unsupervised.
So he’s home. So I’m writing in the office with Discovery Kids playing in the background. I’d been hoping for my música but it clashes with the T.V. so the ghostly narration of a show about…ghosts…will have to do.
Admittedly, I do have a mild headache which perhaps is impinging on my writing today in addition to the haunted house narratives. The headache I think comes from the two Lemon Drops I had at last night’s small gathering at the Tam O’Shanter to celebrate Rodger Jacob’s birthday. I was pleased to meet for the first time writer John Shannon, Will Campbell (who is also a contributor for Blogging.LA), and Joseph Mailander, editor of the Martini Republic, as well as the honoree himself. I was a nervous wreck at first because…well…I’m completely introverted and unsociable when it comes to meeting people for the first time which is why I generally do not enjoy attending schoolchum-kid's birthday parties, PTA meetings, networking groups, or the anything such as. However, everyone was so entertaining and offering such wonderful insight into L.A. living and the lives of writers and bloggers that I had no choice but to shed my comfortable “suit of armor” and engage.
I did not dance on a table nor grab a lampshade. The Lemon Drops were just…strong.
Hyperbole and personal hang-ups aside, it really was fun to meet people I only know through e-mail and the blogosphere.
So…here I am willing my child to pretend he’s not here which is impossible. He cannot bear to be in a space and not announce his presence. I know in my heart that will be a wonderful quality as an adult – he’s been doing this since birth. He just gets louder and more assured with age. I’m writing away and he’s in here asking me to take him to lunch. “Can we go to the mall? Can I buy a Ramones t-shirt?”
“Pretend you’re not here.”
“Can I play a few beats on the drums? Just one before I shower? Huh?”
“Pretend you’re not here.”
“How can I not be here, I AM here!”
“God grant me the serenity I need.”
“Mom…I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey. Get showered and dressed.”
Sick, my ass.
Me, me, I’m the sick one. I have a headache. My story that I’ve been writing is floundering. My novels are sitting here undone. My blogging is getting desperate. I have to put the blanket on the bed that’s been washed to remove dog hair, have to take off the comforter first, tuck in that blanket. Cleaning the kitchen comes next followed up with paper-grading, preparing for classes, vacuum cleaning. Then I’ll get A and M, do homework, make dinner, get kids to bed, finally watching 24 at 9:00. Then…then…
I think I’ll just stay at the computer and pretend I’m not here.
The college is on spring break this week – I was really looking forward to quiet days in the house with all the children gone. Today, my first day of freedom (relatively speaking of course), my eldest announces he’s far too sick to attend classes. I gave into his pleas because I wasn’t interested in fighting him, because he did have a runny nose according to the husband, and because I was going to be home anyway meaning I wouldn’t have to worry about him being unsupervised.
So he’s home. So I’m writing in the office with Discovery Kids playing in the background. I’d been hoping for my música but it clashes with the T.V. so the ghostly narration of a show about…ghosts…will have to do.
Admittedly, I do have a mild headache which perhaps is impinging on my writing today in addition to the haunted house narratives. The headache I think comes from the two Lemon Drops I had at last night’s small gathering at the Tam O’Shanter to celebrate Rodger Jacob’s birthday. I was pleased to meet for the first time writer John Shannon, Will Campbell (who is also a contributor for Blogging.LA), and Joseph Mailander, editor of the Martini Republic, as well as the honoree himself. I was a nervous wreck at first because…well…I’m completely introverted and unsociable when it comes to meeting people for the first time which is why I generally do not enjoy attending schoolchum-kid's birthday parties, PTA meetings, networking groups, or the anything such as. However, everyone was so entertaining and offering such wonderful insight into L.A. living and the lives of writers and bloggers that I had no choice but to shed my comfortable “suit of armor” and engage.
I did not dance on a table nor grab a lampshade. The Lemon Drops were just…strong.
Hyperbole and personal hang-ups aside, it really was fun to meet people I only know through e-mail and the blogosphere.
So…here I am willing my child to pretend he’s not here which is impossible. He cannot bear to be in a space and not announce his presence. I know in my heart that will be a wonderful quality as an adult – he’s been doing this since birth. He just gets louder and more assured with age. I’m writing away and he’s in here asking me to take him to lunch. “Can we go to the mall? Can I buy a Ramones t-shirt?”
“Pretend you’re not here.”
“Can I play a few beats on the drums? Just one before I shower? Huh?”
“Pretend you’re not here.”
“How can I not be here, I AM here!”
“God grant me the serenity I need.”
“Mom…I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey. Get showered and dressed.”
Sick, my ass.
Me, me, I’m the sick one. I have a headache. My story that I’ve been writing is floundering. My novels are sitting here undone. My blogging is getting desperate. I have to put the blanket on the bed that’s been washed to remove dog hair, have to take off the comforter first, tuck in that blanket. Cleaning the kitchen comes next followed up with paper-grading, preparing for classes, vacuum cleaning. Then I’ll get A and M, do homework, make dinner, get kids to bed, finally watching 24 at 9:00. Then…then…
I think I’ll just stay at the computer and pretend I’m not here.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Saturday
The rain is coming down despite a blue sky peeking through the gray-black clouds. From my place in the office, I can hear the constant watery noise, I can see the blue. D isn't home at all today as he's gone on a quick trip to State Line with his buddies for some gambling. Makes me laugh because he doesn't really gamble or drink. He loves to ride the wave of energy his friends give off and laugh at their antics. He'll play video poker and maybe, maybe, if he's brave, try a hand or two of Texas Hold'em.
In the meantime, I'm sneaking on the computer every so often to read blogs, to check messages, to write an entry here. I'm working on a story that I can't quite bring to the place I want it to be and it's so frustrating. The idea teeters on the tip of my tongue, I review it for the strain of a message, or a story, about me and my siblings, trying to understand that period of time. The story just stares at me, incomplete. Maybe it's incomplete because the story isn't finished, i.e. my life is still on the gallop, getting to wherever I'm going.
Today, I'll be taking my daughter to a birthday party but I'm pretty confident I won't be hearing any stories of crimes taking place in the suburbs. Once again, I find myself cringing with a desire NOT to go. Three hours with other parents and their darlings. Is this a horrible thing for me to think? Am I really that sort of distanced mother? I don't think I am...and yet...
Lately, I've been on a roll of self-criticism. I'm not prepping well enough for classes, I'm not explaining the material well-enough, I'm not attentive and adoring enough of a parent, I'm a lousy, lazy wife, I don't appreciate my husband enough. I'd rather the kids go play...someplace else, someplace I'm not. I'm having wishes again to pack up my car and drive far away for about two weeks.
Ahhh...although...I will be soon getting a little break, the break I mentioned to Palm Springs with the girls in my family. Should be fun, I'm really looking forward to it. The funny thing is that I'll miss blogging, I'll miss my computer time. I'm thinking though it will be the time I can read and do nothing. Plenty time for writing and chatting at home when I'm trying to escape...
...them.
M is at my side as I type, whining about going to the party which starts in about 45 minutes. I have to wrap the present, I have to get dressed. I have to breathe deeply to overcome those intense desires to call and cancel. Can you imagine the chaos then? It's almost tempting to see the house in an uproar, the crying, the screaming, the dramatic pronouncement that she hates me.
Of course, I'd never do that.
I would never do that to the sweet girl who takes a shower with me, who asks me to bend down so she can pour water over my hair, who always arranges the bottles on the shelf and stands with her feet pointed like such a lady even though nobody has ever taught her to stand that way. She's patient now at her age to have her hair washed, to tip her head back in the water and close her eyes tightly so the soap won't sting her eyes.
No, I'd never do such disappointing acts to indulge my own flaws and cracks in the self.
In the meantime, I'm sneaking on the computer every so often to read blogs, to check messages, to write an entry here. I'm working on a story that I can't quite bring to the place I want it to be and it's so frustrating. The idea teeters on the tip of my tongue, I review it for the strain of a message, or a story, about me and my siblings, trying to understand that period of time. The story just stares at me, incomplete. Maybe it's incomplete because the story isn't finished, i.e. my life is still on the gallop, getting to wherever I'm going.
Today, I'll be taking my daughter to a birthday party but I'm pretty confident I won't be hearing any stories of crimes taking place in the suburbs. Once again, I find myself cringing with a desire NOT to go. Three hours with other parents and their darlings. Is this a horrible thing for me to think? Am I really that sort of distanced mother? I don't think I am...and yet...
Lately, I've been on a roll of self-criticism. I'm not prepping well enough for classes, I'm not explaining the material well-enough, I'm not attentive and adoring enough of a parent, I'm a lousy, lazy wife, I don't appreciate my husband enough. I'd rather the kids go play...someplace else, someplace I'm not. I'm having wishes again to pack up my car and drive far away for about two weeks.
Ahhh...although...I will be soon getting a little break, the break I mentioned to Palm Springs with the girls in my family. Should be fun, I'm really looking forward to it. The funny thing is that I'll miss blogging, I'll miss my computer time. I'm thinking though it will be the time I can read and do nothing. Plenty time for writing and chatting at home when I'm trying to escape...
...them.
M is at my side as I type, whining about going to the party which starts in about 45 minutes. I have to wrap the present, I have to get dressed. I have to breathe deeply to overcome those intense desires to call and cancel. Can you imagine the chaos then? It's almost tempting to see the house in an uproar, the crying, the screaming, the dramatic pronouncement that she hates me.
Of course, I'd never do that.
I would never do that to the sweet girl who takes a shower with me, who asks me to bend down so she can pour water over my hair, who always arranges the bottles on the shelf and stands with her feet pointed like such a lady even though nobody has ever taught her to stand that way. She's patient now at her age to have her hair washed, to tip her head back in the water and close her eyes tightly so the soap won't sting her eyes.
No, I'd never do such disappointing acts to indulge my own flaws and cracks in the self.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Catching a Virus
My computer has a virus – there’s no other explanation for the slow loading of internet pages, the slow loading of Windows operations. I spent the day scanning the computer, running tests, reloading, reloading again, defragging in desperation, all to no avail. I found one virus known as “NavBar,” called a “security risk” by Symnatec…this is such a pisser. I’m all out of options, short of tossing the computer and starting over.
But that would be too tiring. The thought of it makes me want to curl up in bed and go to sleep.
***
The special education team met yesterday to review A’s progress in school with the classroom modifications in place. As I had been complaining about, they too came to the conclusion that the modifications were not helping him in the classroom. His performance in math and writing there is way below his capability. On top of that, the psychologist believes A is depressed based on the way he writes – almost scribbling, not paying any attention to the lines on the page, and writing really hard, making the no. 2 pencil chicken scratches almost black. He’s now in the full special education program for math and writing – really excellent goals over the next year. They won’t hold him back because he’s actually testing at grade level except in math and writing. And he only scores low on those under certain circumstances.
So…they now rule he has a learning disability. I’m relieved. This way, the homework will be adjusted, he’ll get special pull-out time with a special education teacher, I’m hoping we’ll see great improvement over the next year.
I have a headache and wish to sleep for three days.
***
The other night I had a dream about being sleepy – I was in an unknown parking lot somewhere during the day and I was being accosted by violent persons unknown. The problem was I couldn’t run because I was so, so sleepy. The kind of sleepiness where you struggle to keep your eyes open, where if you don’t lie down you’re going to drop like a ton of bricks right then and there, only I couldn’t do it because I was on the verge of being horrifically violated.
The next scene of sleepiness took place on the sidewalk where I was pushing a stroller that held J when he was only months old. I was talking to my sister when suddenly we noticed our aged grandmother in the street, babbling. We were so sad because she was clearly in a state of dementia.
I finally woke up. After taking the kids (all the kids, thank the gods of all that is holy in this universe) to school, I sat down at the computer to wade through the virus-laden menus and windows to get to e-mail and there was a note from a friend that said in the subject line, “WAKE UP!”
She was inviting me to participate in a group writing exercise. Loads of fun, I know.
The thought of writing detailed, funny, silliness made me tired. I grabbed my cup of coffee, trudged to my room, put the coffee cup on my dresser, and crawled into my bed, fully dressed. I lay under the fluffy, flowery comforter and thought…hell with waking up. Who wants to clean the floors, do laundry, work on class outlines, grade papers or locate the smell of urine that’s going on in the den by the T.V. when I can sleep instead? Ahhh…sleep…the perfect escape for the stay-at-home mother.
I didn’t sleep.
Instead I got up, flipped on the tube and watched the full two hours of 24. More escapism. Tonight I made tacos for the family. D cut up the tomatoes and cheese. I doled out the sour cream and hot sauce. I found the urine.
Tonight, I’ll continue my search for a virus. I’ll have a shot of vodka when I toss the children into their beds. I’ll pretend to be writing something significant.
Forget it, I’m sleepy and am going to bed.
But that would be too tiring. The thought of it makes me want to curl up in bed and go to sleep.
***
The special education team met yesterday to review A’s progress in school with the classroom modifications in place. As I had been complaining about, they too came to the conclusion that the modifications were not helping him in the classroom. His performance in math and writing there is way below his capability. On top of that, the psychologist believes A is depressed based on the way he writes – almost scribbling, not paying any attention to the lines on the page, and writing really hard, making the no. 2 pencil chicken scratches almost black. He’s now in the full special education program for math and writing – really excellent goals over the next year. They won’t hold him back because he’s actually testing at grade level except in math and writing. And he only scores low on those under certain circumstances.
So…they now rule he has a learning disability. I’m relieved. This way, the homework will be adjusted, he’ll get special pull-out time with a special education teacher, I’m hoping we’ll see great improvement over the next year.
I have a headache and wish to sleep for three days.
***
The other night I had a dream about being sleepy – I was in an unknown parking lot somewhere during the day and I was being accosted by violent persons unknown. The problem was I couldn’t run because I was so, so sleepy. The kind of sleepiness where you struggle to keep your eyes open, where if you don’t lie down you’re going to drop like a ton of bricks right then and there, only I couldn’t do it because I was on the verge of being horrifically violated.
The next scene of sleepiness took place on the sidewalk where I was pushing a stroller that held J when he was only months old. I was talking to my sister when suddenly we noticed our aged grandmother in the street, babbling. We were so sad because she was clearly in a state of dementia.
I finally woke up. After taking the kids (all the kids, thank the gods of all that is holy in this universe) to school, I sat down at the computer to wade through the virus-laden menus and windows to get to e-mail and there was a note from a friend that said in the subject line, “WAKE UP!”
She was inviting me to participate in a group writing exercise. Loads of fun, I know.
The thought of writing detailed, funny, silliness made me tired. I grabbed my cup of coffee, trudged to my room, put the coffee cup on my dresser, and crawled into my bed, fully dressed. I lay under the fluffy, flowery comforter and thought…hell with waking up. Who wants to clean the floors, do laundry, work on class outlines, grade papers or locate the smell of urine that’s going on in the den by the T.V. when I can sleep instead? Ahhh…sleep…the perfect escape for the stay-at-home mother.
I didn’t sleep.
Instead I got up, flipped on the tube and watched the full two hours of 24. More escapism. Tonight I made tacos for the family. D cut up the tomatoes and cheese. I doled out the sour cream and hot sauce. I found the urine.
Tonight, I’ll continue my search for a virus. I’ll have a shot of vodka when I toss the children into their beds. I’ll pretend to be writing something significant.
Forget it, I’m sleepy and am going to bed.
Monday, March 06, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
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!
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!
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Sunday, February 12, 2006
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.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
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.
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