100 words a day

We’re halfway through a snooty conversation about Art when I start to believe the latest theory proposed.  It probably has something to do with the two empty wine bottles sitting on the floor.

“Every home needs bad art.”  The theory says.  “If you don’t have something horrible hanging on your wall, you have no point of reference for the beautiful things.”

I take it under advisement and buy a print of a Monet that I can’t stand.  It looks strangely perfect in the living room.  And it makes the Winslow Homer right next to it look much better.

Theory Confirmed.

People in general are consumed with birthdays; especially their own.  I’ve known people who actually have secretly planned their own surprise parties.  What a self-indulgent lot we all are.

I’ve always been more intrigued by people’s conception date; you know, backing up the birthday nine months and figuring out a likely date.  Valentine’s Day explains my Mom’s November 15^th birth and Halloween my own.  My kid’s Mom and my Dad are likely April Fool’s babies.

Last night was Earth Hour when the world turned off its lights for an hour.  Nine months from now is New Years.  I’m just curious.

It’s a different Saturday, in a different coffee shop, but it’s the same thing.  I can hear Anxiety revving her engine and I need to think fast.  I come up with a plan, but it’s terrible.  I call someone to talk me out of it.

My mom thinks it’s a great idea.  She says it quite plainly, “Sure, you could coach him through this or you could take care of it yourself and be done with it.  How many more weekends do you waste on this?”

Thirty miles later I enter the dark office and trudge back to my desk.

I arrive with my writing samples in a folder.

As I’m waiting on line for coffee - I spot the group.  Three females.  They’re young enough that someone would call the police if I started talking to them.  One is clutching a Harry Potter novel.  Another has something by the loathsome James Patterson.  They’ve all got notebooks and pencils and they still live with their parents and wouldn’t miss American Idol for the world.

I pay for my coffee, and ten minutes later I’m drinking it at the beach next to a trash can where I threw out the folder.

The buffet is an American tradition.  What a sad statement.  When did overeating become a tradition anywhere except Italy?  

Upon entering New China Buffet, I saw exactly what I thought I would:  small, loud Asian women serving fat, loud white trash people.  Crab legs, sushi, orange chicken, all you can shove into your pie holes; well, in the amount of two hours!  They actually had a time limit.  Posted!

Not only are we shoveling in food like we’re crossing the Rockies but we’re doing it for over two hours! 

It doesn’t take that long to eat food at questionable temperatures.

Our family is always going somewhere and it’s usually fast.  Besides the seemingly everyday trip to the market to pick up more stuff we don’t really need, there are trips to grandmothers, banks and gas stations.

Now add the kids’ itinerary of musicals, science clubs, community service and those damn Saturday birthday parties. There are weekly out of town trips for Mom and sometimes the whole circus tags along.  We walk everyday and hike every week. 

Tomorrow is Mother Earth Day and we are shutting down the electricity for her and getting off the rat wheel.  Please do the same.

It’s no news that my job is a rushed one.  The clock is the enemy.  “The mail has got to get out.  Be back by 5:00.”  I hear it daily.

I honestly don’t look at the clock at all throughout the day because I don’t have time to.  But, I love it.  Never has a work day spent itself faster.  

Today, however, rushing got the best of me.  I hopped in the seat and whipped on my seatbelt knocking my knuckles against the tray that holds the mail – leaving behind a small chunk of my flesh.

Yeah, gotta slow down.

As I rolled into the pool and heard my Darth Vader-like breathing, fear leaked in as my confidence took a dive.  At one point, I almost tossed in the proverbial mask.  I didn’t think I could swim without it. 

While the other students practiced emergency surfacing, I asked a classmate to do a “wet” run with me.  I calmed myself down, focused on breathing, and was successful.  Too bad it didn’t count.  Then, it was time for the real thing.  Riding on my wave of success and not wanting to have time to worry, I went first, and I passed!

All week my husband’s been sick.  He spent last weekend in bed while I made him chicken noodle soup and ginger and brown sugar tea.  By Monday, despite being well enough to be up and about, he stayed in bed.  After being nurse and enduring sleepless nights with him coughing, I was grumpy.  I said, stop being lame and get better!  He sniffed, coughed and looked at me, eyes all watery.  I said, I’m sick of your being sick, especially when I’m never sick.

Today, he wakes up all better, and I wake up with a frog in my throat.

Dad and I are at the lecture when he gives a little yelp of recognition. Terry Jones, the guy from the Monty Python films who utters those immortal words in Life of Brian: ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!’ is there. He and my father were friends at university, but haven’t met in more than 40 years. Those decades fall away as they stand now, in each other’s arms. Admittedly, Terry takes longer to recognise my Dad, who hasn’t had the stellar career, than vice versa, but the delight is mutual.

They do not exchange email addresses. 

Six months ago we had a security incident at my office.  With typical efficiency, they finally interview me today.

“Had you ever seen the subject before?”

He looked a little like the guy who played Seinfeld’s father.

“Can you describe your mind state at the time?”

Well – I was coming down off a 3-day crack bender, and was pulled out of an orgy right before it happened.

“Did you discuss religion with the subject?”

Being agnostic, of course I bring religion up every ten minutes, apropos of nothing.

“Did you feel threatened by his behavior?”

He’s still alive, isn’t he?

My previously discussed New Years Resolutions are moving along at a snail’s pace.  The 5 pounds a month I am supposed to be losing is only 5 pounds so far this year. 

The only thing I’m consistent with is organizing my Resolutions Club Meeting each month, that is, getting together with five friends to talk about our progress for 5 minutes and then get onto more fun topics.

So…last night I instituted a Penalty Phase for myself. 

If, at our next meeting (April 29), I haven’t made the agreed-upon progress, I must foot the entire bill for next month’s dinner.

I arrive home shortly after 10pm.  The house is still and comforting.

I hang up the coat, take off the shoes, and plug in the cell and the iPod.  I grab a cold beer from the fridge, and drink it in the shower.  Ten minutes later I’m dressed in PJs, eating a roast beef and swiss wrap and watching the Daily Show with the window open.

I have lived here for exactly one month.  In that time I’ve quit smoking, lost ten pounds, hosted two dinner parties, and one poker game. 

I cannot remember ever feeling more safe and content.

Wow, what an exciting night.  Finally, my (always incorrect) sense of direction paid off.  I was in a different part of town looking for the metro to go home.  As a handsome stranger approached, I asked him for directions.  He responded – in a sexy Scottish accent – that he was also looking for the metro.

We got lost together and chatted a bit.  We finally found it, and he conveniently missed his transfer point.  The next transfer was my stop.  When we disembarked, I asked him if he wanted to get a pint.  2.5 hours and one kiss later, we separated.

He warned me, “You shouldn’t date me.  You just got here and if we start dating now you won’t make any guy friends.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.   I was livid.  I was a freshman and he was older and wiser, a sophomore.  He didn’t know me.  Most of my friends from high school were guys; it was the girls I never quite fit with.  How dare he put that on me?

I never like being told what to do, so I ignored him.  And dated him anyway.   You know what? That son of a bitch was right.

I’m originally from Chicago, so bitching about the weather not only comes naturally, but I actually think that skill was taught to me in grade school.  I was used to tornadoes in November and shoveling the baseball diamond so I could play high school ball in the spring.

Now I live in the heart of Dixie and this time of year the azaleas and magnolias are blooming and the pollen covers everything.  Well, it snowed yesterday.  I have a serious sunburn from two days ago. Last night I used a dozen flannel blankets to cover our plants.

Enough is enough.

Since announcing that I’m taking SCUBA lessons, I’ve been greeted with the occasional, “Wow, I could never do that.  Isn’t that dangerous?”  The thought of the bends or becoming a shark’s breakfast is their fear.  That’s not my problem.  No, no.  I failed my SCUBA class because of something far simpler:  I like plugging my nose underwater.

I really wish my family would’ve broken me of this habit when I was a kid.  Instead, I grew to become an adult who owns multiple nose clips.  Now, I have an F under my weight belt and must repeat my pool skills.

Sometimes objectivity is needed.  When it comes to ascertaining the quality of one’s own life, an extrication of emotion and feeling needs to be initiated. 

Moments ago, I stood back from my life and viewed it as a stranger might.  This stranger found that Mike was on a pretty good track.  Well, vocationally and financially.  But, romantically, he’s lacking.  Spiritually?  Mediocre.  Relationally, quite genuine.  Physically, he’s strong.

How about in the area of his dreams?  He’s stopped writing his book.  He’s still writing, though.  That’s something.  

A new phase may be coming.  Perhaps what is lacking will soon be in abundance.

About 2 weeks ago, my favorite pair of sunglasses broke.

Every time I hit the streets it bugged me that I needed to find new ones.

Saturday…I did.  great price, exactly what I was looking for.  I’m no longer squinting and worrying about the growing crease in my forehead.

So I was surprised today when I reached into my purse to grab my sunglasses.

And, while holding them, I noticed another pair, similar size and look, but a bit beat up, sitting in my purse.

I have no freaking idea where they came from.  I’m wracking my brain, but, nothing.

The protocol at family holidays has always been confusing.  My extended family was so large when I was growing up I sat at the “kids” table until I was 30-something.

Yesterday at a family gathering I found myself smack dab in the middle again.  In one room sat grandparents and parents like me but older or at least more conventional in their views.

In the other room were my kids and high school and college age nephews.

One group complained about the world and the other argued about how to save it.

I sat down proudly at the “kids” table.

For weeks, I’ve been feeling on top of the world. The euphoria is over, I think. In the past 72 hours, I’ve:

-Had a flat tire on mile 297 of a 300 mile road trip.

-Unwrapped a whole chicken to discover it was missing both wings

-Got Wasabi Powder _IN MY EYE!!!_

-Slipped in my bathroom, hitting my thigh against the toilet, causing a huge bruise that kinda looks like a sailboat.

I understand that we each have to take our turn in the bottom of the barrel, but I think the Wasabi was overdoing things just a little bit.

It’s one of those days when I wish it would rain.

I left early to meet a friend for coffee, then came back to my place, sank into my couch and woke up hours later.  I fight the self-loathing that comes with a day of sloth and lose.  I corral my remaining energy to go grocery shopping.  I head out in a hoodie and a messy ponytail without glancing at a mirror.  I avoid all eye contact at the store and am uncharacteristically un-chatty with the cashier. 

I’m tempted to go to bed now. I’m actually looking forward to Monday. 

Check Yahoo mail.  Check Gmail.  Check 100wordsaday.  Stare out the window.  Flip through daily planner.  Read something for inspiration.  Use the lint roller where the cat just was.  Clean the litter box.  Wash hands.  Read label on tube of hand cream.  Sit back down.  Check Yahoo mail.  Check Gmail.  Check Craigslist for dream freelance project seeking stories about spas in
Tahiti, all expenses paid.  Resist the urge to nap.  Stare at the empty page.  Breathe.  Begin typing.  Get bombarded by Radio Station K-FKD*, streaming AM/PM on crystal-clear brain waves, now playing “Your Writing is So Bad, Why Bother?”  Grimace.  Type.   

My hair’s finally long enough to gel.  Or wax.  Or blow dry.  Of course now that it is, I want to pull a Britney.  Why can’t I let it be? 

I’m not going to shave it, I stamp my foot.  It would be easier to deal with, yes.  I would only have to glance at it in the morning.  Now that it’s manageable I have to do something with it.  I won’t fall into the frumpy-dumpy mailman status quo.  

I already get looks for delivering mail in jeans and with a piercing.  Why not have a faux hawk, as well?

High on this gal’s list of least favorites is the annual checkup.  The exhibition, the cold examination room, the steel instruments, the brutish stirrups, and the impersonal fingers – being private, warm and fuzzy, she’s not a fan.

I take it like a woman.  Just when the worse is over, doctor orders a blood test for good measure.  Making it through the tying of the rubber strip, the rubbing alcohol, even the needle poke, it’s all good till I see the stained cotton ball. 

Finally, I wobble out, but not before the nurse gives me the receipt and a paper cut. 

A lot of my work friends fell off the planet after they went overseas.  I assumed they were leading glamorous lives, partying, charming strangers.  I theorized that this job attracted people who could make close connections quickly but, as novices, might let their network shrink as they grew it in far-flung places.  I wondered if we’d still reunite in Croatia as planned.

Last night, two of them returned to DC.  One hates her job; the other hates her life.  One has endured stress-related illness for months; the other, lonely, sunless days.  Now I understand why they haven’t kept in touch.

I’m sick of political correctness.  It ebbed for me this week hearing some communities now refer to Easter egg hunts as spring egg hunts and the spring bunny.  Wrong, boo, hiss and foul.  It’s the Easter Bunny,  period.  How about vernal equinox leporidae instead?

Why have we become so afraid of the old “if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it’s a duck” mentality?  Also, “sticks and stones can break my bones…” isn’t perfect, but it’s not bad advice.

We all take ourselves way too serious.  Let’s lighten up or the Easter Bunny won’t bring eggs.

As I crumple another losing ticket and thrust it angrily aside, I review my plans once again.

A small win means I upgrade my car, do a little travel, and maybe have a few elective medical procedures.

A medium win means I buy a house.  In Fiji.  And after building a large moat all around it, completely distance myself from humanity while growing a really huge beard.

A large win means I buy Fiji itself.  Kick everyone out, and start importing trained concubines.  Create and equip a top notch robotic military.  Attack another country just for the hell of it. 

…running up and down stairs…twisting in the seat to finger the mail hundreds of times a day…stretching to reach mailboxes I didn’t drive up quite close enough to…dismounting the vehicle to deliver packages, express mail and certified letters…lifting heavy trays of magazines and catalogs…spending eight hours looking down at my lap…jumping at spiders hiding in mailboxes and surprise bee attacks…performing incessant U-turns to deliver to boxes I’ve missed…swiftly transitioning from dry to wet, hot to cold and back again in the matter of minutes…scanning the road for dogs, wandering children, cars, low tree branches, trash cans, potholes, bicyclists, wild animals…

People ask me casually about my plans for my days off. Without a beat, I eagerly respond, “My dad’s turning 60. I’m going to surprise him for his birthday.” I’ve even been telling people who haven’t asked.

I can hear myself saying it. It’s playing on a neverending loop in my head. Father. Birthday. Surprise. It all sounds so… normal. As if just repeating it will make it so. If I reassure the universe I’m fine, maybe I will be.

But I’m not an only child and it would be nice if I wasn’t doing this alone. Maybe next year.

The front door clicks shut. He’s gone now, and I’m clearing up the flat, getting it back into its habitual, spinsterish order, spinning around like a pinball game, reclaiming my territory.

My T-shirt, which he slept in last night, after I successfully talked him into staying over, is sprawled across the bed.  I press it to my face, and inhale deeply. It smells of him, his faint aroma of washing tablets. For a second, I am transported back to him.

Then I think, hang on a second, this is kind of creepy. And I toss it in the laundry basket. 

The odd collection of celebrity crushes I’ve had:  Shawn Cassidy, Erik Estrada, Rick Springfield, Eddie Van Halen, Michael Jackson (there’s a sign of how honest I am) Andrew McCarthy, Jimmy Smits, Jonathan Knight (NKOTB…there’s another sign), Andre Agassi, Jerry Seinfeld, Adrian Brody, General Wesley Clark, Jeremy Piven, and Jimmy Fallon.

Once…I even thought a guy I met in a bar was Jimmy Fallon.  I was so convinced it was him, I was calling friends and family at 2 in the morning to tell them I was dancing with Jimmy Fallon.

Even though his driver’s license said his name was Brendan.

I’m a resourceful person.  I know how to get things done efficiently and usually by myself.  I’m as confident in the woods or 100 feet underwater as I am discussing profit & loss.  Point is I’m usually not lost or easily confused.

I needed a questioned answered today and I am hopelessly clueless and in the dark for an answer.  I sought out “experts,” I googled, yahooed and searched ask.com.  I went old school with a real dictionary.  I even called a dear surgeon friend.  No one, no resource could help me.

How can a teenager’s head spin 360 degrees?

He’s tiny.  Fretful.  Repetitive.  He’s got bug eyes, an asymmetrical body, and a ragged rear end.  I suspect below average intelligence. 

I offer him his choice of the kitchen breakfast bar, the living room end table, or the desk in the bedroom.  He is noncommittal.  Beginning what I assume will become a habit, I decide for him.  At least at the breakfast bar he can watch me cook.

Ten minutes later, after almost knocking him over twice, I decide the living room is the best place.

I name him H.W., in honor of my latest favorite film.

Welcome home, goldfish.

I didn’t want to do it, but I was pressured into it.  My writing teacher said, “Why won’t you?  Give me one good reason.”  I didn’t have one, other than the fact that I was being chicken.

All day, my palms were clammy, and I was shaking, which didn’t help since my story was about someone with Parkinson’s disease.  But once I got up there, once I announced the title to the little crowd in that bookstore, I felt right.  It was a story I’d worked with for more than a year, and it was time I made it proud. 

I know, I know.  I’m gay.  But let me explain.  Wait, what?  Was it planned?  Um, actually it was, yeah.  Will you let me explain?

I spent the weekend in a cabin in remote Leavensworth with some friends to celebrate my best friend, Jean’s, birthday.  Well, one night there was a spattering of stars, there was some vodka and some Bailey’s and there was a hot tub. 

What? NO! Clothes stayed on!  Anyway, my birthday present to her was a wee little makeout session.  I’m not conceited, stop it.  She’s expressed interest, ok?

I won’t even mention the three-way kiss.

So we have another conversation about where our relationship is going,.

After two years of dating, without so much as keeping a toothbrush in each other’s bathrooms, the inescapable truth is that we are going to have to make a decision about our future sooner or later. Make or break.

The matter won’t be settled this evening. We got to bed. Next morning, I have to leave early, not long after I wake up crying. He helps me re-pack my little rucksack, taking my scrunched up clothes out, and folding them lovingly, with a careful tenderness that breaks my heart.

Even with the evidence in front of me, I refuse to believe it.

“I broke my toe, and I didn’t even know it?” I ask the doctor.

He nods, smiles, and explains it to me for the third time.  His best guess as to when it happened is early November.  He points again to the hairline shade across the x-ray. 

“You are very lucky it healed on its own,” he says.

“But I’m here complaining about pain in the same toe, so something must still be wrong!”

He smiles and writes me a painkiller prescription.

“You’re getting old,” he says.

My grandfather came to America from Ireland, named my Mother Sharon and lived in an all-Irish neighborhood in Chicago.  By all accounts, these facts would make my heritage partially Irish.

My younger brother and I share the same parents, so we’re the same ethnic background, right?  Wrong, according to a story he told my kids a few years back.

My brother has been to Ireland, has a Guinness tattoo and loves Celtic music.  These facts, my children were told, make my sibling more Irish than me.  It’s funny now, but they bought it years ago.

Ah, Guinness and Tullamore Dew. 

A republican candidate for president is in Iraq on our tax dollars as part of an official congressional visit.  Problem is the candidate has rarely shown up in congress to vote the past couple years.

The Vice President just happens to show up in Iraq at the same time for the fifth “anniversary” of our invasion of Iraq.  When did ongoing wars start having anniversaries?

Being in Iraq cost Americans $50,000 a minute, 24/7. 

I thought about this all last night when I pumped in $87.40 into my vehicle.  The truth about Iraq is out there somewhere, I think.  Right?  

I always thought grown-ups were boring, static, almost pre-destined after a point.  I’m realizing that we’re as dynamic as we want to be.  Our paths aren’t set.  We can start something new at any time.  This weekend I started an intensive SCUBA course.  I’m hoping to go diving in the Red Sea after I move to Saudi.I’ve wanted to dive for 8 years now, and it’s weird to finally be on the path.  I even own a mask and fins!  Now I wonder what’s next.  Maybe skate-boarding.  I want to make sure I live my life passionately.  Mary did.

So this is what actual anxiety feels like. Sure,  I’ve experienced standard stress before: hives before an interview, dreams about exams I didn’t know I had.  But this is different, and I didn’t see it coming.  

I brought some work home to do over the weekend.  I knew it wouldn’t take too long so I decided to knock it out over coffee. 

I was reviewing one of my employee’s work.  The further I got, the more nauseous I became.  My body understood well before my mind articulated it: I think I have to fire someone. 

I’m going to be sick.

Our teenage daughter left a couple of days ago for a trip to Disney’s mega-galactic, money-pit, magic kingdom world.  The chorus at her high school was performing there as well as seeing the sights, all via “luxury motor coach.”

I of course was suspect of the whole endeavor, but they raised the money and off she went.

She phoned us with delight each day and sent pictures of her adventures.  Everything was great.

The phone rang at five this morning.  Our Mickey Mouse clubber was really sick and in need of her Mom and some rest.  She’ll be home tonight.

“And another thing,” my mother says, complete incensed, “how dare he make his wife stand there like that?”

“Last I checked women still had free will. No one forced her to stand there.”

I don’t want to blame the victim. I really don’t. But at some point we need to take responsibility for our actions. Others disagree with me. They tell me I don’t understand, and clearly I don’t. They say it’s love, they say it’s support. I just look back at them with a blank stare.

Come on ladies, it’s time we stand up for ourselves and sit down.

I struggled through work today not knowing whether I was going to work tomorrow because I’m still in the midst of training.  I’ve been told time and time again that as a Transitional Employee (A.K.A. Postal Bitch), I will never have a Saturday off and will most likely work 50-56 hours a week. 

This weekend some friends of mine are going to Leavenworth to drink and play in the snow.  3:30 rolls around and I ask one of my supervisors when I work again.

“You’re training on Monday. Have a nice weekend.” 

Drinking games and remote cabin here I come!

I’m a father, a partner, a brother and a son.  I’ve been a son the longest and that title comes with both joy and responsibility.  For the past couple weeks I’ve been a son and have spent time with my Father as his health makes turns he’d rather it did not.

There are a million things I want to say to him but listening to the few things he does say seems most important.  Our relationship has run the gamut from great to lousy over the years, mostly on the great side.  I just don’t want to think about tomorrows.

How suddenly it can occur.  One day it’s gloom, rain and barren trees; the next it’s gloom, rain and pink-shrouded trees. 

Seasons are thought of as gradually progressive entities.  Winter melts into spring.  Spring transitions into summer.  Summer fades into fall.  And fall silently hardens into winter.

In the great Northwest, there is one thing that is not so subtle:  the cherry blossom trees.  Their arrival is swift and showy.  They parade themselves like a vibrant troupe of gypsies down a wet and sullen cobblestone street. 

I’m glad they’ve arrived. Their presence is a herald of beautiful weather to come.

It’s been a good week.  On Sunday, I receive a personal email from a professor at one of the two writing programs I applied to.  She offers me admission and includes specific, kind comments on my writing sample. On Tuesday, I get a call from the director of the same program offering me a fellowship.  Today, I have a voicemail from the other writing program.  The professor says he has good news for me and perhaps a little more good news on top of that.  Encouragement comes rarely during the solitary days of writing that seems to go nowhere.  Yay!

Why, when a guy asks for my number and I’m thinking “Eh, he’s okay”, and a week goes by without a call, does his status become elevated? 

Seriously, it’s like someone totally average creates a demand for themselves by ignoring me. 

Day two, I’m curious and mildly interested to see what happens. 

Day four, I hate him for making me wait four whole days. 

Day six, my life depends on receiving this phone call.

Then it clicks…this is how I can elevate my own status in the future.  Now, he just needs to call, so I can test the theory…

For the first time in months, I am “carded” at the grocery store.  The contraband?  A four-pack of Guinness. 

Watching the cashier, I can tell light years in advance she’s going to card me.  It starts with a bored look at my face, then a flash behind the eyes.  Her hands stumble whilst scanning items.  She shifts her weight.

When she gets the courage to ask, I hand the license over silently.  She squints at it, and her eyes widen in shock.

“Sorry, sir.” She says. 

“Older or younger?” I want to ask. 

But I don’t really want to know.