Posts (page 2)
Hey everyone! Here's a self-revelation sure to make everyone cringe....I am a selectively and illogically jealous person.
Yes. I know it's hard to imagine. Bear with me tho whilst I bare my decaying inner moral fibers. Most of my worst moments in this department spring from certain things the Numister does or says. Things a better adjusted person, who is say less of a tyranical sensitive tooth, might just casually and lightly shrug off as the jackassery or insensitivity of men/people in general. None of that easy breezy Covergirl crap for this girl. Oh no.
Let me share an example. I have a long and burning hatred of Jennifer Love Hewitt (you know, the "My jugs hear dead people" girl on tv's Ghost Whisperer show). My friend Donna helpfully brings all tidbits she sees on the internet of her bland mediocrity and limited intelligence to me like small gifts. She doesn't understand this hatred, but finds it endearing. I don't hate her because she has no acting talent. I don't despise her because she can't sing. I don't want to hold a pillow over face because she has made a career out of two giant glands....though all of that certainly contributes to my disdain. I hate her because on occasion the Numister likes to point out to me how hot he thinks she is.
Another example. Rachael Ray. The hideously overhyped Food Network chipmunk with the voice like two bricks hitting together. I could despise this woman because she is not fit to be a sous chef at an IHOP, let alone allowed on tv. Because she schlepps cookbooks full of unappetizing slop. Because she has whored herself onto every box of Ritz crackers I ever hafta see in grocery aisles nationwide. Nope. I hate her because the Numister points out how cute he thinks she is whenever we run across her show. Ug.
As for real people, like that we actually know....not so much. Miniscule incidents. But I fully blame him for those. Not the women. And I don't hate on them or want to do them bodily injury.
I know I do not deal with loss well (if at all) and so I am surmising that losing something I think should be mine (as in the hotness and or cuteness rankings) is part of my inner beast. Why he says what he says is one of the world's greatest mysteries and surmising what is going on in the male melon is pretty much useless.
Maybe it is just safer for both us to play out this particular wrinkle in our relationship with tv personalities who really only amount to little moving pictures on the front of a screen.
I have been jonesing for something to carp about...and as if the Powers That Be ("Satan?...Is that you?") have been listening, my application to bitch has been granted. Aaaahhhh.
In the news....the DePauw University sorority flap. This is over the dumping of the so-called ugly Betty's, the supposedly overweight and under-accessorized members of Krappa Krappa Kri (in your warm beer). According to the scorned women, they were asked to sex themselves up....suck up more liquor.....whore about.....slap on A BIT MORE makeup OR else stay upstairs behind closed doors during rush week. Thank you very much.
Then in a REALLY obvious move they were given alumni status (also known as the bum's rush) and told to move their ample behinds outta the sorority house under the guise of a lack of "committment" to recruitment. Begone real girls...we only want Girls Gone Wild and their skinny little pink behinds around these here parts.
M'kay.
The savvy young women went to the media and tearily, outragily, told their tales of Imagism. Prettyism. Slender slander.
First thought I had: sororities sound like one of the seven levels of hell to me, but what the hey. If you wanna do the Greek thing...go sister. Still. What do I know, except if you were my daughter, my baby girl, I might tell you that these places are, shall we say, made for these kinds of situations.
Second thought: I hope the university throws the craptastic sorority off the fucking campus. (Sorry for the french...I've had a couple of Chardonnays...what of it? I'm not drivin'!)
Third thought: To the deliciously plump, bespeckled, beautiful Asian American young thing on CNN getting all teary over having been asked to leave the KKK....screw them! Raise your fist girl. Keep getting your straight A's and kicking most of the boys' asses in your trig class. Keep achieving. Keep speaking the truth no matter if it makes your makeup run a bit on CNN. Make them all bow. You will someday be a lawyer or a chemist or a SMART woman raising smart kids. Not a silicone stuffed, empty-headed, trout-pouted, tarted up, pretending not to be whip-smart drunk-girl-so-the-guys-will-like-you-slash-take-advantage-of-you-party-doll-whore.
Darn, I wanna play more, but the Numister has made his red ass chicken wings and is starting to get disgruntled because I am not eating them......all right already, I'm coming! Can't you see I'm making ART here? Sheesh!
And so it goes...the letting go. I will try to post a picture this evening. Or tomorrow.
And now for a report. Things about going gray you all may wish to consider for someday....
1. It effects skin tone...thus new makeup is needed. Cha-ching.
2. Gray (or in my case silver and white) hair is much drier. WHOA NELLIE is it much drier. Again, new products are suddenly needed as well as boatloads of conditioner, glossing, spray on shine etc.Cha-Cha-Ching.
3. It effects color choices in clothing. All the warm colors (mostly rusts and golds) I used to be able to pull off...mmmm, not so much. Cha-Cha-Cha-Chingaling.
So, in effect, the only category missing here for All the New Spending That Must Be Done is in the shoe department. I don't think I can successfully convince the Numister all my shoes are JUST SO WRONG for the new me. Dayum.
I try not to post long entries.....it seems presumptuous and a bit selfish what with so many of us here to read and appreciate...but lately I have been working on my book of essays -- "The Dark Side Garden Club"...polishing and hacking, hacking and glueing bits here and there. So I have had NO juice left for my blog.....sniff, sniff. So I am going to break my rule and post an essay from the book....please forgive me. I hope I don't cause Vox to explode!
The Writing Sickness
No cure in sight
“Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.” Anna Quindlen
I remember well the first time I attempted to write a novel and failed to produce immediately a bestseller. It was kind of readable for hand-picked, tactful (said slowly) close friends. I churned out 250 pages of first draft flotsam and then took what I thought was a long deserved break. And by that, I mean I never worked on it in earnest again. Whew (rolls eyes).
As a result, I never even entertained the usual fantasies writers mentally masterbate to -- a phone that magically starts ringing (Hello? Yes, I’ll hold for Miss Winfrey…) and, in my case, the need for a spanking new wardrobe to match all the fine dining, champagne-swilling, jet-setting, club-hopping and crowded book signings ahead. (Cue the clip where I run into Times Square and toss my jaunty tam-o-shanter into the air, arms outstretched as I spin around in wide-eyed wonder at my own Specialness.)
Rather quickly, I got the idea of what might be involved in actually trying to get published. The word “work” entered my head. Mind-numbing, solitary, slogging kind of work where you got to sit home alone with the cat a lot and were routinely told no, felt rejected and or were asked to please reread the writer’s guidelines clearly spelling out the editor’s lack of interest in anything you might possibly write or arguably even hope to write. Ever. You heard me.
A life spent wearing your bathrobe, querying, knee-deep in S.A.S.E.’s and letterhead and Writer’s Market books telling you how to become not only an author but a well-known and beloved talk show personality, and as an added bonus, modestly and humbly rich. And by rich, I mean able to pay your bills and buy two-ply toilet paper.
When the time came for me to reenter the workforce for real, I knew I would need to cash in on my inherent lack of discipline and neediness. Also known as something that involved hysteria-producing, damp-at-the-waistband deadlines, a regular paycheck and human companionship.
Hence, I got a job writing for a newspaper in the town where I live as part of a fascinating new initiative and chapter in my life called “Broke-assed and Soon to Be Divorced.” Oh, the fun.
The last time I had done the reporter schtick, I was a barely legal child bride working in Cornhole, Wisconsin -- teething on what was becoming known as the family farm crisis, writing features on topics ranging from local veterans visiting the newly minted Viet Nam Wall Memorial to the county’s largest tomato ever grown. Okay, I was 23. Still.
In my spare time, I was penning scathing poems about middle-aged women, never dreaming how quickly I would become one.
Fast-forward 20 years, give or take a few. Four kids later, one ex-husband, a couple of part-time PR jobs and some not so happy times, and finding myself back where I started seemed like the only way to start over.
The only snag (besides the gigantic lawyer’s bill) at the time was that a couple of significant people in my life were quite regular and quick to point out that I might as well be saying “Would you like fries with that?” for what I was getting paid. I could have been frothing cappuchinos at the local coffee boutique for roughly the same money, and would most likely have had better benefits.
On those days when I was alternating between a hysteria-induced crying jag and or rigid with fear over how to pay the mortgage and keep everybody in snacks and skateboard shoes, the others would helpfully mention I might consider becoming a Completely Different Person, with a Completely Different Career.
If only I would sell satellite dishes, or schlepp cell phone plans or go back to the nefarious world of marketing communications. If only, after a 12-year absence from the working world, I would suddenly become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. If only I would do at least one of these things then dogs and cats would lie down together, global warming would end and a certain person would not be put out or God forbid strained by having to pay child support.
I asked Donna, a fellow reporter at the paper then, why we were doomed to be lowly writer-reporter types. As opposed to one of the many manicured wealthy women who live on one of the five lakes in our zip code, whose taxes cost more than our salaries combined.
“We do this because it is all we are fit for,” she said. I asked her again a week later, just to be accurate, and she tells me we are here because we didn’t get the high-paying, flower-arranging, tennis and a quick lunch at the club genes, we got the worker-bee genes.
“That and we have the attention spans of gnats,” she points out. Which is true.
We liked to think of ourselves moving from story to story, boldly arranging the facts for the betterment of all humankind, but really we were more like clever helper monkeys with keyboards and a dash of the glorified snoop thrown in.
I asked Donna to repeat part of what she had just said because I write slow, which is a really big plus for a reporter, and she says she can’t remember.
We often didn’t even recognize our own stories as much as a day after filing them, and were amazed and or shamed by what we had trundelled out for public consumption. “Did I write that?” was a common refrain, which would have made our company’s legal guys jittery if they had any idea.
I finished jotting down Donna’s response and then admitted to her I was blatantly ripping her comments off for what I hoped would be a book that would generate enough money to allow me to buy expensive luxury items like car insurance and meat at the grocery store.
“Yeah well, good luck with that,” she said, but immediately picked up the phone and called her friend Sandy, who is a fellow sufferer and asks her why she’s a writer.
“Because it’s the only thing I had a hint of a gift at -- a hint mind you,” she said before hanging up to take another call. Me too, I think in a small voice.
Even our writerly need to question and the kinds of questions we come up with make people uneasy.
I’ve been told I’m a good listener but it’s the least I can do before I whip out the hammer and tongs. And it often feels like pulling teeth, because people so infrequently give us the answers we really want.
Donna confessed that she did a feature on a retired middle school teacher who rode her bike across country for over 3,000 freaking miles. She had a myriad of adventures, life experiences and nearly reeked with inspiration and stamina, and all Donna really wanted to know was how much weight she lost.
“Ten pounds,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean it hardly seems worth it.”
The man I love finds my questions completely irritating after about 30 seconds of simple, modest probing. He conveniently became deaf in one ear many years ago in anticipation of our relationship, so he could routinely pretend not to hear me question his feelings, other’s motives, and just about anything else that pops into my head.
The man I work with finds my prurient interests and glee in all that is The Real Story (according to me) not just suspect, but a clear and telling example of all that is wrong with the media.
My children, all boys, have that male tendency to get all the wrong information or reveal the right information when you least need it. Even my step-daughter, is still unknowing of the real dirt, but at least will tell me things every once in awhile when we are cruising down Silver Lake Street or winding our way home on Valley Road, the light barely slanting in my old station wagon’s sun roof, her thumb in and out of her mouth. She will be sitting in a small heap of cookie crumbs, stuffed animals and books she has dragged along and out of the blue of a busy day of errands to the bakery and farmer’s market, she will tell me something knowing. A sliver of information that sheds another flicker of light on the mystery of How Thing Came to Be or Are. In a sleepy, singsong voice she will tell me something loaded, like, “Mama took Daddy’s boat.”
We both know, her perhaps only on that decidedly instinctive and female level, that mama took more than just daddy’s boat. And this is how it starts, the writing sickness.
People lose patience with me, professionally and personally, and some even ask why I care. And I can never think of a good answer off the cuff that doesn’t make me sound like Crazy Shirley Maas. She lived in my ex’s childhood neighborhood, and was a Class B snoop. The kind who stayed indoors but incessantly watched neighborhood doings from behind drapes half-closed and heavy.
The kids on their street responded by ordering pizzas for Corky Maas, the family’s decaying fat basset hound whose shape resembled a large baked potato stacked on top of four splayed and baggy fur posts.
I wrote that because I wanted a picture in your head of a knobby yet overfed, bleary-eyed, flatulent dog who was once in awhile the recipient of two extra large cheese pizzas. I wanted you to remember your neighborhood as a child. Or an odious, but loved pet. Or to ponder the weirdness of the world.
I see and hear and read things the in course of any given day that strike me as remarkable. Maybe you’re like me (minus the meds, Donna says, but she’s only jealous) and you too see things worth mentioning. Then again, maybe you don’t have an inner demon or angel that forces you to carry your kid’s cast-off spiral notebooks around and write down those things. In that case, I’m here for you.
Beyond that, all I can tell you is that I am driven by the belief that knowing certain things, writing them down and then coming alongside another human being to share them can make even the darkest of life’s moments bearable. That plus being nosey is helping to keep the pantry stocked in macaroni and cheese.
A Valentine's Day shout out to all my Vox people....may you find little bits of nourishment on every corner of your day and know that at least one living thing in your life finds you simply irresistable on a regular basis. And now...a love poem and picture...
Marriage
for Hannah
“Your feet
smell like
grass and pumpkins,”
she tells the dog,
who clearly needs
to bathe,
whose hairy face
smells like a fish bowl
left to its own devices.
She loves him and his stink
like the wife and mother
she already is at 6.
We should not disdain her for it.
To us he reeks
of dirty feet and old dog.
To her, he is a garden.
JLClark c2004
I wish it were 78 degrees outside and I could ask you over after work to sit on my stoop for a beer and a confab. We could swap the latest gossip, put our feet up and share memorable beauty disasters and successes we have had or personally witnessed. We could title the theme of our discussion, "When Beauty Goes Bad: Recidivism Rates and the Cost to Societal Infrastructures."
For example, we could generally agree that we hate it when ladies color outside the lines with their lipstick or lip pencils and how WE ARE NOT fooled into thinking they have fuller lips than the ones The Good Lord gave them. We would also join hands and sing kum-bi-ya in mournful tones to mark our mutual distaste for the practice of pairing really dark lipliner with lighter lipstick or gloss.
We might talk about the wrongful use of foundations. Both color-wise and amount. Of course we would reminisce about Missus Orange Head...the lady who worked at the Kmart since time began (or since we moved here) whose foundation was, okay yes, you guessed...orange. Coppery orange. Inhumanly orange. Like, "I didn't know they even made a foundation that orange," orange. And how you fondly referred to her as Orange Head on occasion and everyone in the room immediately knew who you were talking about. She also wore a wig with a headband (talk about gilding the tiger lily)...but that is another story for another day.
We would definitely raise our fists against racoonesque black eyeliner for daytime wear (or anytime it ain't applied with restraint after 6 pm). We'd have to discuss the tragedy of hair dyed and fried to heinous troll doll crispy whisps (try saying that fast after a few social drinks). And we would most likely tell a story or two on ourselves, admitting the time we cut our own hair with a manicure scissors in college for reasons that are still unclear. Or that unfortunate time period in our pasts when we got suckered into attempting to "sculpt" cheekbones by "shading" with brownish products and or bronzers that ran us all amuck.
I'm just sure we would debate and rank the horrors of overplucked eyebrows, feathery lispstick, wily facial hair and gals that definitely need to wax but don't and laugh and throw empties over our shoulders with perfect aim into the recycling bin.....if only (heavy sigh)
Apparently there has been a new Surge in the Mommy Wars that I was only vaguely aware of....mostly because
A. I could give a crap
B. I have NEVER indulged in any of the Mommy Wrangling that goes on in Subdivision Land
C. Whenever I encountered a woman, say in play group or book club, who wanted to play the Mommy Card I promptly made a bee-line for the door
D. I do not consider my mothering to be the BE ALL and END ALL of my existance
E. Again, who cares
So...this flap has been a-raging on blogs and on the morning talk shows with Meredith Veira and talking heads and The Pleasure Police Pundits all weighing in on whether or not it is morally, ethically, fiscally, and socially responsible for women to smoke crack at play group dates. WHOOPSYDOODLES...I meant to type "drink wine" only I couldn't because with all the gum-flappin', clickity-clack of keyboards and furor, you'd have thunk it WAS crack or at the very least crystal meth the mommies were imbibing.
I don't know where to start.
First, let me just say, that many a play group date REQUIRES massive doses of caffeine or alcohol (depending on the crowd) to endure. Second, considering the world we live in, I think it is quaint that women are actually arguing over this. And by quaint, I mean fucking stupid. These kinds of arguments come only from women with TOO MUCH TIME AND MONEY ON THEIR HANDS, PEOPLE.
All that said, I would now like to actually say something about what it means to me to be a mother. It is the greatest honor and privilege I have ever been given, this mommy thing. The greatest love story of my life has been the mothering of my boys. Nope, sorry Numister. Sorry High School First Love. Sorry Sperm Donor of The Boys. Ben, John, Ethan, and Joe are IT for me in the Love Department. Hands down.
But.....and I say this in the nicest way possible....they do not define me. They are not my reason for living (though sometimes, on certain days, it feels that way). They are not my job or career or trophies or projects. I have (rightly or wrongly) not sheltered them from the sight of me grieving, groveling, reveling or revealing what it is like to be a woman, a person, their mother, someone's wife, someone's daughter.
I don't think my way is the The Way. I don't care how others parent, as long as they're not burning their kids with cigarettes or selling them on the internet. I don't care to discuss whether it is okay for you to drink a glass of wine at the play group. I don't care if you want to drink Drano at the next play group. Why are we talking about this as if it matters. Why must all things Female automatically come under The Microscope? Why aren't we asking why such frappery gets air play while the real issues go unsung?
Why oh why are we so hard on and at the same time foolish with each other? Why can't the battles be over something that matters. As in, lets harness all the energy and wind created by the hanky-waving over this and other non-issues and use it to say or do something about the poverty rates of women and children in this country.
And when did mommying turn into a status symbol-SAT test scoring-science project-tri-athalon-arm wrestling-name dropping-table hopping-consumer lifestyle choice?
Nuff said.
PS Back in the day I did do the play group thing (nary a drink was ever had there because three-year-olds and drinking cancel each other out)...which we then morphed into a book club (no kids, vats of wine were swilled)....which they then morphed into The Friendship Bridge (micro loans and relationships with Guatemalan women to give them a hand). I moved back into the working world during the book club phase. As for mommy drinking at this point....we still meet every year on the first day of school, the buses barely having left the neighborhoods, for Bloody Marys sans children to celebrate our return to freedom and them being someone else's headache for the next six months. Yesssssssss.
Some conversations I've had with myself lately have prompted this post. I've been thinking about the mixed bag of quirks and warts and proclivities that make up each of our ethical selves. And examining how differently people are when it comes to charting morality and making the choices that define who we become. I consider myself a sinner, to be sure, and try to cut others slack, but I've learned I only really find my brand of relative morality whimsical and cute and eccentric. At the drop of a hat, I can decide yours is dubious or distasteful or heinous. Sorry 'bout that. That's how I roll.
Here are a few examples of my own sketchiness if it helps any........
Quick Moral Inventory Reveals Startling Discoveries (I used to write headlines).
I am not terribly opposed to or horrified at the thought of a bit of petty larceny from say a large corporate-type discount retailer. I have been known to steal a lipstick or two in my day without losing much sleep...but CANNOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NOT EVEN WHEN PISS-IN-YOUR-PANTIES DRUNK, litter. And that includes spitting gum onto the sidewalk or throwing biodegradable things like banana peels out the window of a speeding car along the freeway into the tall grass where it would surely not offend anyone and most likely thrill the odd raccoon wandering by.
In a nutshell: I would steal before littering. In fact, I would blithely snatch your eyes before so much as dropping a dixie cup on the sidewalk.
I hate/fear snakes on a level that can only be described as primal. I don't like to see them in my yard. I won't watch the Discovery Channel if they are the featured guests. I innately and on every level don't like them. I accept it and accept that they are an important part of the natural ecosystems of the world. On the occasion when one gets into our garage or decides to set up shop near the front garden, I won't allow the boys to harm them or the Numister to hack it to bits. I respect its place in the world and remove myself from its path (actually I freeze, soil myself, crouch low and try to make it into the house by not moving in any way the snake might discern). That said, I would have no problem pulling the switch on a couple of people that have it coming. Serial rapists, murders and pedophiles. Seriously, I would have NO problem squashing them like a bug. None. What. So. Ever. Sorry Sister Whats-Her-Name from Dead Man Walking.
In a nutshell: I can't hurt a fly, but would happily pull the wings off of a Ted Bundy.
These are just two examples of the Nonsensical Bureaucratic Mess that is My Soul. I'll stop now.
Me and my best bosom buddy were talking today about what we may have discovered to be a universal law....that the instant you start feeling all melty and gooey and head over heels lovey toward your mate of a million years or so, the universe gets wind of it and the VERY NEXT TIME you see him the following will happen.....go on, take your pick...yes you, lovesick bleeting-like-a-besotted-goat woman.....
a. he will act like a churlish bum over something like a burned piece of toast
b. he will decide to stare at as if his life depends on never taking his eyes from Ultimate Fighting on cable all night
c. he will point out some cold hard fact about your lives like that the checkbook is again overdrawn thus ushering in the opportunity for a petty fight over who is to blame, who is better at what, who is crazy, who is mean and end with one or more parties not speaking for the next 12 hours
d. he will decide to drink too much, eat too much, smoke too much and then share every nuance of his gastrointestinal distress with you
e. he will announce it is a good time to take that long-postponed fishing or hunting trip to any one of his reprobate cousin's shacks dotting the countrysides of the northern part of your state where he will grub about in the dirt for days with no regard for health or hygiene and return a mere shell of a man, holding his ass in his hands and crying like a little girl and admonishing YOU for letting him go
f. he will decide it is time to dust off those rotting cowboy boots, or mangy bowling shirt, or t-shirt that has the saying on it THAT IS SO DURN FUNNY and will want to wear it out in public and aren't you the snooty, party-pooping, don't know what the hell you're talkin' about killjoy for not wanting to be seen with him in said item
All that said...we are keeping it on the down-low that we feel especially loving toward our menfolk today. Shhhh. We don't want the powers that be to ruin Friday night.
Whew...I have just spent a couple of contemplative days thinking about MY BIG MOUTH.
I know, I know. Hard to believe.
But in conversations with one of my very dearest and bestest friends it has come to my attention once again, that I am a powerful wielder of words...especially when it comes to fighting, when I feel backed into a corner. The things I can say sometimes, especially to the Numister, literally cause the cat's hair to blow back, milk to spoil, and the odd small household appliance to burst into flames.
I have words. I have the keen, but useless trick of noticing even the smallest of human foibles. I have got Clever down (notice I didn't say Intelligent...because a smart person would not say some of the hideously hurtful things I have said in my sketchy career as a Supposed Grown-Up). I can say things that are very hard to take back, and very hard to live down.
Ug. I just hate that about myself.
I want to be Zen Woman Who Only Imparts Goodness and Light. Peace Lady Who Speaks with Witticism and Wisdom. Not Raging, Steeley-Eyed Destroyer of Lesser Beings (aka: my husband and the occasional other people who may or may not deserve it).
And since we all know that ain't going to happen...I have decided that I may need lots of Time Outs. And a silent retreat or two at Our Ladies of Perpetual Stern Looks convent. I'll let you know how it goes.
