Liberation

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It’s time for contemplation,

A reconciliation

Of the past to the

Present

No more self-condemnation

For the things that i thought

Or the battles that i fought

In my head with the

Woman

Who detested what i sought.

She’s an echo in the dark

Of a much mistaken mark

Of what i thought a girl should

Be…

No bite and barely bark.

In contrast, this,  my Queen

Neither gentle nor pristine

In her crown of iron and

Fire,

With her truth and conscience clean.

She’s the one who makes me dance

Makes me sing and make romance

With myself without

Regard

For the other’s outraged glance.

Both inside me, always cross,

Blaming each for other’s loss.

With the chasm in

Between

Like a giant albatross

Hanging, broken, from my neck.

Like a mainsail on a wreck:

Or a  gypsy reading

Tarot

Using only half a deck.

But i’m done with it, i say!

There must be some proven way

To end the battle always

Raging;

Make the dark see light of day.

No more fighting twixt the two

For too long i’ve suffered thru

The dichotomy of

Womanhood:

The “Girls should” and the “I do.”

I am firm. I won’t give in

To some other’s views on sin.

I must sacrifice my damning

Self

For liberation to begin.

Break thru that rusted gate

Of venomous self-hate.

The Queen shall rule the

Echo,

And  as so, steer my fate.

 

Worth and Nakedness

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I am a big fan of photography books. Especially those over-sized, glossy paged, portrait type coffee table books that weigh a ton and where the photographer somehow projects both the outside and the inside of the subject. And i have many of them. Too many, probably. But one of my favorites is a gathering of photos by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. A book of diptychs. On the left side of the page, a well known porn star in their usual street clothes. On the right, in the same pose, the same porn star undressed and made up for filming. TG-S is an amazing photographer. He captures the thoughts and emotions going on behind the eyes. And in the case of this particular book, in nearly every single spread, he captures something that makes disturbing sense. With maybe two exceptions, every subject is visibly more comfortable in the naked photos.

When i first bought the book, the startling reversal of the usual level of comfort, clothed and not, took me a second to wrap my head around. Even knowing that these people make their living naked, it seemed invasive to stare at their bare selves. But it seemed even more intrusive to stare at their obvious discomfort when captured in clothing. The looks on their faces resembling  cats forced to wear Halloween costumes. The awkwardness and antsiness is palpable. And to those of us who make a living with clothes on, it seems strange, and even a little sad.

Why do i bring this up today?

I was side-swiped by a reminder last night that i’m a bit of a Classist. I am distrusting and uncomfortable around people with money and social standing. And while most people associate Classism with the oppression of poor people, it also comes into play in reverse. Some of us who grew up “without” never quite adapt to life “with”.  Even if we have worked hard and earned the right to cross that social barrier, we will forever feel foreign when we get there. Some of it comes from formative years questioning our worth in a society that values wealth. The rest of it lays with the simple human need for familiarity. And just like no knowledge of kale being a superfood makes it any more palatable, no understanding that “worth” and “value” have little to do with money or titles makes it any easier to talk to the master when you feel like the house elf.

Don’t get me wrong, you can dress me up in gilt and pancake, and i will perform like i was born to be at the ball. I will talk and dance and socialize like i am Rita Hayworth’s red-headed step-child.  But it is just a performance. I might as well be playing a giant praying mantis for all the common i have with the character. It feels absurd. Dishonest. And definitely not like my best stage work.

To tell the truth,  my inability to step confidently in that world annoys me.

I try my best to treat everyone as an equal. I strive to treat all with love and respect. I evangelize the need for equality amongst humanity. But i myself feel like a fake when i call my higher-titled coworkers by their first name. And if they speak familiarly with me, i assume there is some need or reason that will turn out to be a play on me and bite me in the ass. It’s just stupid. These patterns in my head. Stupid. I know they are the same types of neural patterns that once caused me to keep getting married… The repetition becoming a bad habit. But where marriage had visible, undeniable implications, a faulty mindset often doesn’t. And it is harder to correct something that doesn’t eventually slap you in the face with a price.

Just like the porn stars and their comfortable nakedness, we grow to accept these bad habits, these self-imposed labels of beastliness, as familiar friends, even tho they are the kind of friends who ditch you at the bar for the first cute guy that walks thru the door, leaving you half drunk and without a ride.

With friends like that, we become our own enemy.

I suppose the solution is the old “Fake it til you make it” thing. Force yourself to behave like you belong on both sides of the tracks, and eventually you will believe it. Retrain those neural pathways to take healthier routes. Accept that the equality you favor for others also applies to yourself. Take stock of your own worth. Reassess your own hierarchy. Learn to be comfortable in the clothing you deserve to wear, lest you end up naked in a coffee table book.

It beats the hell out of waiting for Harry Potter to give you a sock.

Toddy

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Fire

Inside my ears, and its fingers

Wrapped around my cranium like

An electric hairnet.

I can feel my pulse in my Occipital lobe,

A thundering base line to a  Klingon opera.

One drug. Two drugs. Three drugs.

Four.

To no relief. I beg the

Big guns…

Knife in my ear.

Sweet release.

Bash my brains in.

Sweet release.

Tase me. Tase me good. Tase me til i fall

to the ground and the pain

goes away.  Aah, sweet release.

But my hands cannot comply.

My head is swollen.

I cannot hear.

And my eyes beg for mercy with each lumen received.

Customer support sits in a Lucy stand

At the back of my brain and tells me

To reboot.

As if i haven’t thought of that.

That’s what the drugs were for.

But the pain continues and

I cannot take

The cage of nails surrounding my skull

Any more.

Any more.

No more.

Shaking and weak, i boil the water.

Eyes closed to block out light, i find the bag by memory.

I lift the bottle, its weight an anvil

Add the poison to my tea.

Sweet release, oh yes!

It lights a fire in my belly that competes

With the one in my head

And wins. My room is growing dark.

I cannot lift my head.

My body like lead.

Sweet release.

Thank God.

Sweet release.

Stories from the Justice League – OBX Edition

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The events i am about to describe are true. Names have been changed to protect the not-exactly-innocent (Tho we do actually call ourselves the Justice League, and we are all actual Superheroes in our own right, having overcome tremendous obstacles to become the Badass Paragons of Womanhood that we are now.)

***********************************************************************

I got a tan this weekend, and as a telltale sign of the fun we were having, i have little white lines where my happy eye-crinkles were. I smiled so much that the flesh inside those deep crevices never saw the sun. (Ladies and gentlemen, the one wrinkle i will not complain about having!) I think friends and family were worried about how much we would drink, but honestly, we ended up giving away half the alcohol we brought to a couple we met on the beach, both to avoid having to buy a cooler to bring it home, and also as an apology (More on that later.) And i am certain they were worried about what would happen when the OBX contingent of the Justice League decided to throw caution to the wind for a weekend. For the most part, tho, we were good girls. Well, more accurately, we would have been good girls had the ocean not intervened. Or the neighbors. Or the fear of heights.

I turned 50 this past weekend. To celebrate, my besties and i had an adventure. Off we went to a condo at the Outer Banks. We had only planned two things: Hang gliding, and a trip to a famous donut shop. The rest of the time would be fun, relaxation, and a little bit of sight-seeing. A perfect adult weekend.

We got in very late on Thursday due to a long drive and a fight with the GPS. For some reason, the AC was set on 60* when we got there, so it felt like an igloo. Catwoman was sent to turn up the temperature while the rest of us put up the groceries we had brought. We checked things out around the weekend digs, marveled at the view from the porch, and then started getting ready for bed.

“It’s still freezing in here!” says Jamie Sommers. SuperGirl and i, the Mighty Isis, agree – it doesn’t seem to have warmed up much. We take a peek at the climate controls… They are set to 65*

When confronted, Catwoman confesses that she really needs it cooler, but she does agree to a compromise and taps at the AC control.

A good night’s sleep. A pot of coffee, some junk food, and we hit the beach with too much giddy anticipation to notice the chill in the apartment.

First observation: All our eye glasses, camera lenses and phone faces are completely fogged from the change in temperature. Second: The surf is bigger and choppier than we expected. Third, we have found the place of our dreams.

SuperGirl and i are 50, Catwoman and Jamie are 40-somethings. But in spite of this, we are showing off our best assets in pretty swimsuits, laying our scantily clad bodies on towels to tan for a bit before hitting the water. We were happy and confident when we finally strolled our way to the tide line. Now, SuperGirl and i are strong swimmers, having grown up on the beach. We were used to the Atlantic and its sassy saltiness. But this beach, these waves… We had never been in anything like this. The four of us weren’t in as far as our ribs when a big wave hit and knocked us all on our asses. Trying to stand up as gracefully as possible turned out to be pointless, as the suction of the undertow for the next pulled us back down within seconds, and the following wave bitch-slapped us like we were Nicholas Cage in MoonStruck.

A few more beatings from Poseidon and the surf settled enough for us to stand up. Coughing, dizzy, and a bit out of sorts, the four of us unsteadily got to our feet. As i look to make sure my sisters are all ok, SuperGirl’s glasses are on cockeyed and she’s blowing sand out of her nose. Jamie has a pile of rocks in her bikini bottom that looks like she had a massive bathroom accident. Catwoman’s bottoms are rolled tightly at her ankles. And both my boobs are squashed in the area where only my cleavage should be. Immediately we squat back into the water to fix the malfunctions, laughing heartily at each other and our own embarrassment when we realize the full complement of beachgoers has seen the whole thing.

Gluttons for punishment, we keep playing in the water, body-surfing and jumping over the waves. We lost count of the number of times one or more of us lost all or part of a swimsuit. Or had the undertow pull five pounds of sand into our bottoms. Or swallowed a growler of seawater. We had a blast and laughed like lunatics at each uncounted incident.

As it turned out, other people were counting.

Back to the condo to wash and dress for dinner. Catwoman’s idea of compromise on the temperature of the condo didn’t exactly match ours. But when we complained that all the winter palace lacked was Christmas lights or a nice view of the Aurora Borealis, the only response we received was, “Bite me, Bitches.” Catwoman was the organizer, so by custom, we had to relent, but, damn, i’m pretty sure Nanook of the North would have been right at home!

Our condo shared a water heater with the one next door, so showering became an exercise in yelping, but we emerged an hour later, pink and painted and dressed like the, ahem, ladies we are. We had a wonderful time over dinner, enjoying the meal, salivating over the server, and raising eyebrows over a Rico Suave wannabe who spent the entire evening getting up from his table to walk around the dining room for no apparent reason except to show off his absurdly tight, bright yellow short shorts.

As had become her habit, SuperGirl told everyone she encountered that it was my 50th birthday. And when i say she told everyone, i mean everyone. She literally stopped random strangers on the sidewalk to point at me and share the fact. Most people looked a bit awkward at the news flash, but a few joined in on the joke. The restaurateurs were of the latter group and politely offered me a wheelchair to help me out of the establishment after dinner. Thank God i have a good sense of humor.

Thus ended day one.

Day two was a slightly early rise as we had an appointment at a grassy airfield/ winery with two young men and their very large kites. Man number one was a small, blonde surfer dude with a degree in psychology who was younger than my oldest child. Man number two was a Tom Brady lookalike, older than his coworker, and – can i say – visually and charismatically speaking, everything a woman my age would want in a man. I mean, DAMN!  Even after the officially spoken rule that i could grab anything except the hand glider’s steering wires, i was afraid to grope for fear that i might be unable to let go. Or worse, might sink my teeth in.

To note: SuperGirl had no such fear.

Tho i am terrified of heights, i was determined to go thru with this adventure. I’ve taken small plane flying lessons and flown many times in helicopters with pilots who were certain they could make me sick (None of them were ever able to – they apparently had no concept of my overflowing pride and stubbornness.) I figured, if i could do that, i can do this. So we listen to the safety lecture, given by an awesomely badass woman close to our own age, and a champion hand glider in her own right, and then each take our turn as a human kite ornament.

Of course, i magically ended up on Tom Brady’s kite. Cocooned above him in tandem, i was surprised at how safe it felt, even as we detached from the plane at 2000 feet. The view was too breathtaking to allow for the breathlessness of fear. I have never felt so exhilarated as i did gliding above the trees and beaches, wind and skill swooping and swaying us -once i said i could handle it-  with a lovely, pearly gray haze over the ocean in the distance, and my body gently hammocked over a fantasy man.

If i’d have died up there, it would have been with a smile on my face.

Since no number of words will accurately describe every bit of feeling that experience gave me, i will refrain from any more and let you experience it for yourself someday. Nor will i bore you with the details of the yummy shrimp and pork belly tacos for lunch, or the ravenous mosquitoes of the Elizabethan Gardens, since they pale in comparison to the thrill of flight. Suffice it to say, it all rocked!

We get back to the condo, and as we are trudging up the stairs, SuperGirl stops dead and turns, “Oh my God! I saw his dongle!”

Say, what?!?

In broad daylight, in a communal, four foot deep wading pool, in a family complex, an eerily thin and rangy 30-ish couple decided to make a filmless porn flick.

The only  good thing about this is that the warnings took precedence over alerting the entire known universe to my birthday. Now we were alerting complete strangers, “JUST SAY NO TO FOUR FEET!!!”

We change into our suits and head back to the beach. The waves are even choppier today, and the undertow stronger. When i say that i spent a good portion of the afternoon in  a washing machine, that is exactly what it felt like. But we were having a blast so neither the expensive beachwear that spent more time off the parts they were charged with covering than on, nor the ingestion of Mother Nature’s healing saline solution, nor SuperGirl’s GoPro-mounted-on-something-that-looked-humorously-like-a-cheap-vibrator-but-was-supposed-to-be-a-float could keep us from jumping into the turbulent water again and again. And in our oblivious glee, the beach was treated to a full view of Catwoman’s porcelain backside, bits and pieces of Jamie’s various pink parts, SuperGirl’s everything as she went arse-over-tea-kettle with her not-really-a-sex-toy-with-a-camera, and pretty much the entire territory from my mighty ducks to my Christmas goose. Tho it would normally, the laughing and pointing from the other beachgoers didn’t really bother us much. Even when Catwoman got caught up in a powerful wave and was thrust between the legs of a man quietly sitting in the water, keeping a parental watch on his teenage daughters.  (Incidentally, his wife thought that incident was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. We were grateful for her good sportsmanship and forgiveness!)

The above mentioned man, his adorable wife, and their teenage girls came and talked with us as we were packing up (After SuperGirl wandered over to inform them both of my birthday and to SAY NO TO FOUR FEET!). Wife checked on Catwoman, while not really containing her belly laughter at the memorable vision of a complete stranger being torpedoed into her hubby’s junk. The teenage girls talked to Jamie and the rest of us about their college plans and their delight that four “older women” would still be enjoying weekends together with our girlfriends. And Dad wanted to know if i had had both parts of my suit on at the same time at any point while at the beach. We talked and laughed til after the sun went down, then went our separate ways as we headed back.

“I have enough sand and rocks in my butt-crack to poop cobblestones.”

“I feel like i’ve had sex with an asteroid.”

“I have seaweed in my cleavage. I’m a human planter.”

“I feel like i’ve been in  a bar fight.”

… All of these said with hoarse voices brought about by brutal saline therapy, and Guy Smiley grins of true happiness.

Supper that night was Portuguese brinner (Linguica and eggs with toasted sweet rolls) in the condo. Followed by world famous donuts in the morning (And yes, they were absolutely the best donuts ever!), a donation of all our leftover alcohol to the sweet family that we visually violated, and a trip to a lighthouse before the long journey home.  The entire weekend contingent of the Justice League is exhausted, sunburnt and sea-battered. We’ll be digging sand and rocks out of our ears, nose, and pink parts for weeks. And we will remember this weekend as the first in hopefully dozens of Badass Women gatherings with as many members of the Justice League as we can manage.

There are more stories from the weekend, of course; but even i have a bawdiness limit on public media. In the end, this is what i hope you take away from my story:

If you have to turn 50, do it with your besties, doing something you’ve never done before, in a place where you’ve never been and no one knows you.

“Showing your ass” literally is way funnier than doing it figuratively. A one-piece may not fall down, but it’s also harder to dig rocks out of!

If you have never had a Duck Donut, put it on your bucket list.

Looking to see who is in the pool can be dangerous. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Be careful who you vote to control the AC, or you may find you have a need for a dogsled.

And if you have the chance to grab a Tom Brady look-alike’s bum while flying 2000 feet above a beautiful vista, take it!

.  

You Are Here

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On my Pinterest board labeled “Just for Laughs” i have a great meme. It’s a picture of the Milky Way. Near the center is a small arrow with the words You are here just below it. It is a reminder to me that, no matter how important each crisis seems, in the grand scheme of things, it is merely dust.

Over the years, i have sent that meme to many people. Friends and acquaintances who are overwhelmed with work, family, or just the day to day of everyday life. Meetings, deadlines, appointments, bills, obligations, politics, illness, aging… Adult life is fraught with reasons to stress. And each day we are bombarded with more. Realistically, most of these anxieties aren’t sentinel choices. Yet we worry over them as if they all are. I wonder why.

Far too many of us are pumping out the cortisols because we feel pushed to gain power at work. We must come early. We must stay late. We must get it all done, on time, perfectly, and then some. At the expense of family dinners and ballgames and recitals and relaxation. Because we are worth nothing if we are not a wealthy boss who runs the world. I’m not sure where the idea came from. When it became more important to succeed at at work than to succeed at life.

We stress over our looks. Too fat. Too old. Too ugly. Too bland. The pressure to look perfect is real. But as Cindy Crawford once said, “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.”  Yet, without those looks or that Photoshop, we don’t think we make the cut. We feel so unworthy that, when joining dating sites, we lie about our age, post pictures from the best body of our lives (decades ago), and hope to God that they don’t notice we lied when we meet them. Because we think we’re not worthy of being met as we are. Why? Who’s opinion is so all-powerful that without it, we are nothing?

We aren’t the CEO, so we failed at business. We owe money, so we fail at providing. We have pooches, so we failed at body. We let our kids eat McNuggets, so we’ve failed at parenting. We are 50 and look it, so we failed at beauty. We failed. At everything.

That is how it feels sometimes.

Those arbitrary standards… Where did they come from? I mean, yes, we all know that the media puts it out there, but we don’t have to buy it. Regardless of what we see on TV and the movies, we aren’t required to accept the notion that we are losers because we aren’t rolling in the dough. Or dating Halle Berry. Or running the free world. We don’t have to accept those notions any more than we must accept the notions of talking dinosaurs, altruistic politicians, or zombie apocalypse.

My friends, especially those of you who are stretched so tight that you feel you’re about to break, it’s time to ditch the media benchmarks and come up with a new definition of success. Things that improve the tiny speck that is your position in the universe. I’ll bet if you sat down and made a list of all the things that prove you haven’t failed, you might surprise yourself. Not just because you are able to make a list, but because of what the items on that list have in common.

You have raised weedlings who will share their lunch with someone who has none. You organize meals when a friend has surgery. You smile and talk with people who look lonely. You always put change in the Veterans’ collection cans. You’ve managed to stay mostly happily married for over a decade. Or two. Or more. You give out the good candy at Halloween. You bake for your coworkers. You compliment little old ladies. You make people smile, even when you don’t feel like smiling yourself. And someone, somewhere, feels better because they know you.

Those things are harder to measure than dollars or titles or pounds, but they are the energies that  real success is built on.

Yes, money, fame, power… those things impact the people around you in a measurable concrete way. But they don’t send ripples thru the universe like love can. Or kindness. Or positivity. Those are the things that change outlook, and, therefore, actions. Those little existential protons are the building blocks of the good life. They compound themselves until they extend far beyond this third rock from the sun and become something glorious.

So tell a child something good you notice about them. Help the elderly carry their groceries. Volunteer for your cause. Share what you have. Make someone smile. And then later, when you feel stressed, overwhelmed, lost… Look to the center of the ripples you’ve created… And say to yourself, “You are here”

 

A Matter of Kindness

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They say that in the end

Only kindness matters.

Thank God

Since that’s all i have.

No wealth.

No face.

No stately grace.

But my heart and intentions

Are good.

 

In the depths of the Universe,

That counts for something.

I think.

I hope.

I hope against hope.

And still i hope some more

That i have the heart i want to have,

And not the one i likely do.

That i think of you

And not me.

 

They say that in the end

Only kindness matters.

And that is all i have.

But do i have enough to matter?

 

That is what matters to me.

“You Put the Lime on the Rodent, and You Mix It All Up”

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I had been hunting the stench for over a week. In my gut, i knew what it was, but i had convinced myself that maybe someone was dumping compost behind my property. Compost that consisted of nasty, dirty gym socks and rot. But down in my gut, i knew.

When my son took out the trash and told me it smelled like something had died in the backyard, i told him he was wrong, it was something else.  I did go look around the backyard, and, not finding anything, continued telling myself that it was a waft from someplace else: The neighbor’s trash can, someone’s septic tank, the river Styx….

Every day, i was assaulted by the smell as i got in and out of my car in the driveway. And every day, i would walk around a bit, giving a cursory search for the source, never finding anything.

When a friend came over to do some tree work for me, i asked him to come sniff and tell me what he thought. Of course, he knew what it was. And he looked with me. Except he really looked. And under a back corner of my decrepit outbuilding, he pointed out a pelt.

I cannot express how badly i wanted him to offer to deal with it for me.

But he is not that much a glutton for punishment. So with my hands covered with grocery bags, a trash bag beside me, and rake in hand; i set about to get the nauseating fur-pile out from under the shed.

Raking it wasn’t particularly effective. First off, it had been there over a week, so it wasn’t exactly fresh. Second, i was quickly able to isolate cause of death to be electrocution when i realized its mouth was hooked on the electrical supply. And third… Well, there isn’t really a third. I mean, i was trying to rake a long-dead animal from 3 feet inside a foot high space. There was NO way to efficiently remove it.

Later, my cousin told me i should have just spread lime over it. I wish i had thought of that.

So i rake and rake and rake and rake. When it finally gets close enough to the edge, i decide to just pick it up. Gagging like i have never gagged before, i reach over and pick up the maggot-covered rustic bathroom rug.

Halfway across the 2 foot distance to the trash bag, his head fell off.

Plop. Necrotic rodent noggin at my feet.

I suppressed the urge to throw up out of deference to the friend who wouldn’t take on the task.

I get the body in the bag, maggots and all. Pick up the head (How i didn’t puke, i will never know), grabbed the bits of fur and pelt that were stuck to the rake, pushed the hand-bags into the trash bag, and pulled the straps closed. Certain that the stench wasn’t just stuck in my nose hair and was actually permeating the plastic, i triple bagged that son of a bitch before tossing it in the trash. Ha! You nasty dead Davy Crockett souvenir! I win! You are gone and the stench is no more!

Well, not exactly.

I mean the bag is in the trash can and it’s hot enough to smelt iron on the sidewalk these days.

And soon i will have to open it and put the rest of the week’s trash in before bringing it to the curb for pickup.  Normally, that would be my son’s job, but unless he forgets what’s already in there, i’d have better luck getting my chihuahua to do it.

I may actually try the clothespin on the nose trick when trash day comes.

Well, i knew there would be critters. I guess it’s just part life at the new caravan. And at least it’s almost gone.

And don’t ya know that the Lowe’s list on my fridge already has, at the top, “Bag of lime”.

Just Singing In The Rain

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Moving sucks. Even when it is worth it in the end. So you have to savor those moments that make it seem less like Hell.

Bringing our final load of assorted leftover crap from the old place to the new place today, in the middle of a rainstorm, my son comes out with this gem of musing…

“Hey, Ma. Do you know that song, ‘It’s Raining Men’?”

“Yes, ” i reply, with a cocked eyebrow.

“I’m wondering, when they fall, are they whole?”

WTH???

“I mean, does a man just fall from the sky, land on his feet, and say, ‘Hi. My name is Terry. I’m from Montana. I’m a Capricorn and i enjoy cooking and volunteering at the local animal shelter.’?  Or do bodies just fall from the sky realistically, breaking into pieces so it makes a mess of blood and guts everywhere? ”

“You know that old joke, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs out there! I just stepped in a poodle!’? If it were raining men, would you say you stepped on a head? Or a foot? Or a butt! Oh my God! That would be funny! But then you’d be slipping everywhere on the blood and guts.”

“Can you imagine the umbrella you’d need? Body parts falling everywhere? It would have to be made out of plywood or something. Like, a Kevlar umbrella, maybe. And, man, it would suck for the street sweepers!”

“Also, how would you know it was going to rain men? Would the sky be filled with cumulonimbus  clouds shaped like penises? That would be weird.”

I am silent thru this whole stream of consciousness, as i have no flipping clue as to the proper parental response.  When he finally goes quiet, i relax a bit. Then…

“I hope they just fall out of the sky whole.”

Me, too, son. Me too.

 

Sticking to the Topic at Hand

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There i was, sitting on my new kitchen floor, laughing and crying and swearing all at once.

If there had been a fly on the wall armed with an iPhone, i’d be a meme by now.

It all started when i realized that i couldn’t bring one more thing into the new house until the movers brought the furniture. For the past few days, my son and i have been bringing box after box of books, dishes, books, art work, linens, books, clothes, and, did i mention, books? It is now to the point that the movers will be lucky to get the furniture IN the house for all the boxes we’ve brought. So i decided to change lanes and start putting things up. I swabbed out the pantry and set out the supplies to lay new contact paper.

Contact paper is the devil’s handiwork.

I pointedly lay out paper to make a pattern, carefully drawing out all the cutarounds for the various brackets. Since the pantry is actually makeshift over the basement stairs, there are A LOT of cutarounds. But i finish the pattern for the first shelf and painstakingly cut it out.

In retrospect, i should have heard the devil’s chuckling. He knew what was coming next.

I peel the backing from one of the rear corners. As i said, the pantry is built into what would otherwise be wasted space over the basement access, so the shelves are rather deep and oddly shaped. I get up on a step stool and lean into depths of the ersatz pantry cavern. I am in up to my waist before i notice that i have managed to stick the contact paper to my belly.

To note: When laying contact paper, it is best to wear more than cutoffs and a sports bra. Or so i found today.

I retreat to unstick myself and, in the process,  clock my head on the shelf above. A stream of curse words in a couple different languages fly out of my mouth like bats from a cave.

Pulling contact paper off your belly isn’t pleasant. First off, for every 2 inches you unstick, a different inch finds another place to adhere. Peeling it from your skin ranks right up there with a cheap bikini wax. And to top it off, the damned stuff will find ways to stick to itself.

After an hour, i had one shelf done.

The bottom shelf went much faster, as it was much smaller and shallower. It was a pleasant respite before attempting the top shelf.

Again with the pattern paper – this time, two sheets, as it is the biggest and deepest of all. I am exhausted from moving boxes the last few days, so even tho i wipe out the pantry, i am not at my most detail oriented. Which explains how i missed the spider web.

Another meticulous trimming of the vinyl. Back up on the step stool. Up on my tiptoes to reach the back. Peel the paper backing. Crease my pathetic abs against the shelf’s edge and lean in. Charlotte climbs from her web and walks across my hand.

I shrieked. I swore. I jumped. I smacked my head again – on the jamb of the pantry door this time. I missed the step stool on the way down, smacked my arse on the wall like a Tim Duncan jump shot, and landed on the floor. It took me a second to realize that i was now wrapped like a burrito in the contact paper, with both hands stuck inside the casing.

Thank God i couldn’t reach my phone, because asking for help to get out of the wrapper would have taken the last of my dignity.

I’m not sure how long it took me to peel myself out of my fly paper cocoon. I’m sure it was a while since i stopped periodically, as i said in the beginning, to laugh/cry/swear and curse the sadistic bastard who invented contact paper. Even after washing up afterwards, my knuckles and belly still have sticky spots.

But it could have been worse. If i’d clocked my head harder, i’d have had to explain my predicament to the Emergency Room. I’m pretty sure the story would have been hospital wide by shift change. Thank you, God, for that small favor.

And so it goes. The shelves are finally finished, olive oil got the adhesive off my hands and belly, and the spider got squashed in the melee. The satisfaction is on par with conquering Kilimanjaro. Or at least Mount Wannahockaloogie. It should be a year or so before i need to tackle it again. And last i checked, i’m not a meme yet.

A successful day overall.

 

My House of Anachronism

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I admit it. I was wrong.

Apartment living isn’t for me.

But, thankfully, unlike many of my errors over the years, this is a mistake i can correct.

I have found a little cottage for my son and i. It has a lot of tangible benefits: It will keep my son in the same school. It will give us the privacy we miss. It will give us a yard again, and more space. And it will save us money. But less tangibly, it reminds me of where i grew up.

I grew up on Cape Cod. In Bourne, to be exact. And during my childhood, it was a pretty cool place to live. We spent our summer days on the beach, and our evenings  playing baseball, having cookouts, going out for ice cream. As we got older, we had our fun getting into the same kinds of trouble all small-town kids do. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t idyllic: There is a lot of alcohol and drug abuse in seasonal towns. Once the tourists go home, there is a collective depression that takes hold and brings many to spend what little money they have in the off season at the bars. Or, if you’re a kid, getting drunk or stoned at whatever isolated place you could find. The sad stories of the cycle of addiction are a plague on us. Still, it doesn’t take away from the beauty of the place.

The first time i saw my new house, it immediately struck me how it would be right at home back in old Cape Cod. 100 year old homes are common in New England, but here in Chattanooga, not so much. So to find one here, and one that would be pleasant to live in… That is a real gem. And to find one like this that has new pipes and wires and mechanics, etc… That’s a gem in a  gorgeous platinum setting. The thought of living in a place that i have grown to love over nearly two decades now, in a house that reminds me of the place i still call home…  It seems as if it was put here for me by divine intervention.

Like the Cape Cod of my youth, the bungalow isn’t perfect. There are things i will need to change and upgrade over time. Not every other home in the neighborhood looks like a page from Better Homes and Gardens. And i am sure, like every neighborhood, there are unsavory people. There will be critters and issues and unexpected bills. But not since i was a small child have i dreamed of moving to Eden. Reality brings its own rewards.

So begins another journey for me. Maybe the home that blends both past and present will bridge the gaps in me from between those two times. Bring the me from the past into concert with me of the present. Take at least part of my life full circle.  (Cue Elton John.) Become a haven of sorts. A place of positivity and harmony.

Of course, there is always a possibility that there is a family of rabid raccoons living in the shed. It could happen that the house was built on an ancient landfill of spiritually significant fish carcasses. It is even possible, as my son suggests, that the house could lay on an electro-magnetic field that will grow and draw in Earth’s gravity more and more until every bit of space junk is sucked in and lands on our roof, causing it to collapse, squashing us like ants, and turning us into aliens.

But, i suppose, like most leaps in life, you just have to cross your fingers, say a prayer, and jump.