Category: Confessional

Free Show for the Insane

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First Look at VegasI think my husband is part evil. No, scratch that. I think he’s a glutton for punishment. We had been up since 4am, been on a plane for over five hours, hadn’t even checked into our room yet and suddenly he’s agreeing to some two hour “presentation” on time shares. The woman that roped us in was a fast moving, smooth talking woman from New York with bleached blond hair, bright circus makeup and a huge toothy smile. She had lipstick on her teeth and a gleam in her eye as she first circled then approached us. Her first words were, “How would you like to see a free show while you are here?” How could we resist? I barely had time to pee before we were whisked off to answer a bunch a questions, confirm those answers and get shuttled somewhere else. I had been in Vegas for not even two hours.
Sitting down with a rep is a lot like playing cat and mouse. They’ll ask you silly questions and you give silly answers. You circle around the cold, hard facts (like price & interest rate) all the while thinking you could just be the cat in this game. The longer you play hard to get, the harder they try. Reps consult managers, managers come out to sweet talk you. Suddenly, you are in the driver’s seat and they’re saying things like, “we normally don’t make this kind of offer…this has never been done before…my boss is going to kill me, but…” On and on it goes until finally someone gives in, gives up. By the time the interest rate was finally muttered we knew we had won. Over 15% was a ridiculous rate no matter how many free trips to Hawaii they would throw in. With NoThankYou firmly planted in our mouths and a resolution to walk away in our hearts we got our free tickets and got the hell out of there. Welcome to Vegas.

 

Final Destination

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We escaped San Diego. Well, let me be truthful: we escaped the Mission. This is the last leg of the journey. Homeward bound tomorrow. I didn’t shop for presents for people. Instead I took pictures for them. I’d see something that would remind me of someone (like Sarah) and just had to take a pic. I took so many that we had to get me a new memory card. I think I’m up to 1000 shots so far…

Anyway, here’s the upcoming blog list:

  • Seen one Michael’s You’ve Seen ‘Em All
  • Here Comes the Bride
  • Maybe You Should Drive
  • May We Be Excused?
  • Dead Camera
  • Chipotle Not Neglected
  • Aquarium on the Hill
  • Way Nicer Everything

 

Plugged in But Disconnected

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We are on the third leg of our journey. We somehow abandoned our cell phone chargers in another city, but that’s another story. Other stories waiting to happen:

  • Get a Room…oh wait, you have one
  • Treadmill in turmoil
  • Book connected
  • Touch-Me Houses
  • Sleeping Giant
  • Queen Mary Grounded
  • How well do you know Forest Freakin’ Gump?
  • Kobe Pizza and the Red Sox Fan
  • Seaweed Queen
  • I Used One of My 9 Lives
  • How Many Times Can you Call Me?
  • Which Zoo Did You Want?
  • Polar Bear Antics
  • Scavenger Hunt Failure
  • “‘You Got Sun”
  • Friends Don’t Let Friends…

 

Plugged In

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It feels like a sin to be plugged in on vacation. Connected while trying to break away. Truth is, I’ve been writing everyday, thinking about my words, shaping what I want to say. Here are some things I have been observing, feeling, sensing, experiencing- all worth mentioning at some point:

  • “Do you want to see a free show?”
  • Scavenger hunt antics
  • No slot machine?
  • Plastic bags make great music
  • Flicker Sex
  • Outdoor Natalie
  • Bananas again?
  • Orgasmic Mesa 
  • Where are the damn statues?
  • Caesar’s again???
  • Nothing with the name Kobe in it!
  •  I hate Penske trucks
  • Dock of the Bay
  • Gotta run

Okay, that’s really cryptic, but those will be the titles of upcoming blogs. I have a feeling Ruby will be able to figure out a few of them, thanks to her Vegas expertise. Seriously, I have been having a great time. We have been on the go every single second, it seems – so, I haven’t run. Yet.

Today is the Long Beach aquarium, some boat (forgot the name) and more sight seeing. For now, breakfast. More tomorrow – maybe a real blog if we can transfer pics (I’ve taken about 200 so far).

Love ya!

Island Rescue

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art hill
I think the fates know I am homesick. Every so often I am surrounded by the reminders of where I really would like to be. Little reminders are dropped just outside my periphery. I catch glimpses of where I miss. A few weeks ago my family meandered around Boston, looking for a decent place to eat. By chance we stumbled on (and into) a cute noodle place with exotic offerings like seafood pad thai and mango curry. It wasn’t a first choice but we chose it. The tablecloths were nice. Fresh flowers on every table. Calming colored walls. Pleasant atmosphere. Within a few minutes someone noticed the paintings. Look! There’s home. The bell, the boat, the lighthouse. Same old in an unexpected new place. And there’s another. Same scene from a different angle. The wedding site. Art on the walls but more to me.
Yesterday I got an email from a professor in New Jersey. He wanted to know my opinion on a legal database I’ve only used once. His signature on the email was a link to a tiny art gallery in a town I used to frequent (way back in the day). Curious, I clicked on the link and was confronted by the colors of home. Red House. Pink Carina. Gray fishhouse. Yellow cochrane. The artist was asking $1,000 for each painting. It was if Jersey had never seen the coast of Maine.
Last night someone from New Hampshire invited me to an artist’s reception. He thought I would like the poppy paintings. Reminiscent of Georgia big flowers. That sort of thing. While trying to figure out the schedule (could I fit it in?) I noticed the gallery featured another artist I know and like and well, almost dated back in the early 80’s. Woops. Small world not really.

So, all of these reminders are here for a reason. Telling me to go home. Urging me to sit by the sea. Soon enough.

Never Should Have

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I never should have listened to you. I never should have got my hopes up or my heart set. Shame on me for being so optimistic, so g-damn hopeful.
This was her house. Sacred ground of a grandmother not mine. Home to the perfect grandparent. Cookies at Christmas instead of before-during-after cocktails amany. Real hugs and kisses instead of Don’t Muss the Makeup air fakers. She wouldn’t have bought me patent leather shoes and insisted on making us match. Twins not born on the same day, or even in the same year. I honored this woman because she was real. It would have been a real honor to live in her home. Her ghost walking my floor.
You never should have got my hopes up or my heart set. I dreamed of living with like a queen. A queen with an angel on her shoulder. You never should have convinced me this could work. the perfect lawn, the perfect garden, the perfect life – mine for the taking. I’m angry and hurtful for letting you allow me to live the American dream. I had a white picket fence in my sleep.
Disappointment hurts deep. I will walk away from the red house. Don’t hate me if I turn my back forever. Even if chance does change I won’t turn around. Condescending tones. When I was your age bullsh!t. I don’t need that. Not at my age and my intelligence. Don’t insult me further by saying there might be a chance because I’ve closed that chapter already. I’ve moved on from that nightmare. Let Grace haunt the halls for someone else.

Pass the Party Perfect

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My aunt is Mother of the Bride for the first time. As I talked to her I could hear her nerves rattling along the wire. Nerves were bordering on wired nervous. A little over two weeks to go before her little girl becomes Mrs. Someone Else. She wants everything to be perfect. I tell her it’s not going to be. I’m not being mean, just meaningful. My mother wrote a list of everything that went “wrong” at my sister’s wedding. Live and learn I thought. When my day came two years later I tried to remedy all previously made “mistakes.” While I didn’t make my sister’s faux pas, I created my own. It was inevitable. My dress didn’t fit properly. The food line was too long. Father-in-law had the first dance…with his son-in-law. Someone stole a golf cart and a groomsman ended up sleeping the night off in a ditch. Yup. Classy. But the real question is did we have a blast? Yup.

No one has the perfect party. There will always be something wrong with something or somebody. Even if you don’t notice, someone else will. Kisa and I wanted to use stolen champagne flutes for our end-of-night toast. We opted for my great-grandmother’s glasses. Unbeknown to either of us one glass disappeared forever. That has become my deepest regret even though I didn’t know it at the time. So, pass the party perfect. It aint gonna happen. What it will be is a great time!

With Regret

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It finally dawned on me that I should post a formal announcement that Rebecca’s show in Simsbury has been canceled. I had forgotten that I had promised free drinks to anyone who showed up. Sorry ’bout that. Next time she has a gig anywhere close to here I will renew the invitation. In the meantime, visit her myspace page for other gigs, new photos and music!

Thanks.

Remember Me Day

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IMG_1385

Last year at this time I watched my uncle march in the Bangor Memorial Day parade. Normally a shy man, normally a reserved man, a keep to himself man, my uncle waved to the crowd and smiled and received wishes of ‘welcome home’ with dignity. This was his moment to be proud.

This year kisa and I watched the same parade in a different town. Men marching proudly. Men smiling and receiving wishes of ‘welcome home’ with dignity. Vets handed out poppies of plastic. Kids scrambled for shattered sweets on the sidewalk. Puffed up men drove shiny old cars with pride. Betsy Ross wannabe women threw wilting red carnations to the crowds. No clowns (unless you count an odd fellow with a pipe on a bicycle), no unnecessary fanfare of floats. Only one marching band from kisa’s high school. Flags of stars and stripes waving. It’s the kind of thing that always chokes me up. After rereading stories like Red Badge of Courage and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee I know that war will always exist somewhere. Hate lives day to day and forgiveness comes around every Memorial Day.

Divorce

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How does one go about planning to leave? She knows she wants out while he has no clue. He mentally packs a bag on a nightly basis, dreaming of the last time he closes the door while she closes her eyes to sleep. How often is it a mutual decision where one looks at the other and they both know what disaster lies ahead? How often is it a firm handshake, nice try, and see you later? The quiet dismantle of a mistake.

To think of my task is chilling
to know  I was carefully building a mask I was wearing for two years, swearing
I’d tear it off?

If you are the one planning to leave – do you have a mental count down clock, ticking the minutes to freedom? Is your end date so final you know the weeks, days and hours ’til freedom? Do you have an escape route a la Sleeping with the Enemy; something so well thought out no one (including yourself) sees it coming? Will you leave your spouse reeling with IHadNoClue and your friends shocked (They-Were-The-Perfect-Couple. No, I never suspected a thing!).

I know your feelings are tender. Inside you the embers still glow
but I’m a shadow, only a bed of blackened coal
call myself jezebel for wanting to leave.

If you are the one left behind – do you sense the abandonment before it happens? Did he turn away from you a little too quickly to read a text message? Did you feel the distance before you noticed how untouched you have become? Are you secretly counting down the days until leaving, wanting to play the broken, left behind, but secretly rejoicing the respite from unlove? Do you grasp at what once was knowing you never had it in the first place?

Seven months, three weeks, two days and six hours is what he said to me. Why? I thought you were good at this marital thing.
I may be good at it. I’m just not happy doing it.

How I wish that we never had tried
to be man and his wife
to weave our lives into a blindfold
over both our eyes.

~Jezebel, Natalie Merchant 1992 

 

Guilty of Anything

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Forgiven

There are some people in my life who think that my rants are about them. They take my words and somehow see themselves. Yet, while they see words that might work, they dismiss full sentences because they don’t add up. It’s almost like they want the whole thing to be their private Carly Simon moment… but it doesn’t quite fit. Take Dear Mr. Liar, just for hahas. I gender bendered on that one. It’s about a GIRL. Well, sorta. There’s a guy component and he knows his part. Don’t worry. That deletion will happen a n y day. Nothing more to tell. End of that story. So, back to the chick component. I hate fake. When I was finally clued in just how fake this fake really was I decided to lash out a la language style. Words and words upon words. I don’t know. It made me feel better. Now, if I could just delete her from my blogroll…

Then, there’s The Bottle has Been. People have questioned the consumption before. If you knew what bottles I tilt in the air you wouldn’t worry so much. And no, I didn’t write it about You either- not your past, your present nor your future. Not You. I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who drinks too much. We (this different someone and I) got into a discussion about “too much” and, more importantly, who are we to say what much is too?
I have a favorite scene in The Fly. Geena Davis is trying to deal with an exboyfriend who simply won’t go away. Or, more importantly, she decides she hasn’t dealt with the ex in the most proper of ways. In the middle of an epiphany she storms off to do what she should have a long time ago.
That’s me. I’m dealing with things I should have addressed eons ago.

So, here’s what I want to say to you. You are not guilty of anything if not everything. Don’t let it (or me) go to your head.

Power of Privacy

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For the longest time I wanted to share my yoga practice with the blogging world. It was nice to mention moves that confounded me, brag about the small successes improvement brought me. But, somehow I have discovered I have more potential when I keep these things private. I think that is, in part, why I stopped going to group classes. The instructor’s voice calmed me, instilled confidence & control, and yet…I felt constricted, caught up. How to explain this? Certain poses create a cocoon of peace for me. Sometimes, I am so grateful for the respite that tears flow and sighs emerge. I find dare more, try more when alone. And I breathe. Often times I found myself not ready to move on from a particularly comforting pose when everyone else in the class was. Unlike other embarrassing moments in a group setting (falling over with a resounding solid thud, belching air out my azz or falling asleep during shivasana), this show of emotion, this lingering was not something I want to share. I didn’t want to hold up the class by holding a difficult pose for just that much longer (think Warrior III or half moon pose, two I have trouble with). I have more strength when I’m alone. There is power in privacy.
Oddly enough, this privacy issue has been carrying over to other parts of my life. I say I want to run with others but I won’t. I can’t. It’s too personal. It’s my time that I can’t  won’t share. I’ve run with only one other person – my sister – and she’s it. I won’t cook for anyone but family and the closer of friends. I won’t let anyone except my husband handle my Lamson & Goodnow.

So be it.

Sunglasses at Night

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fish beach

This is not the blog that was scheduled to leave my mind today. Like a security escorted entourage this one took precedence and took over. I want to stop a moment and thank someone for seeing me so clearly from so many miles away. She wrote a blog that punctured through everything I have been feeling. It’s as if she had been a ghost in my kitchen, hovering over the conversations kisa & I had, but hearing my heart instead.
I am not afraid of change. I am the girl who took charge without knowing the challenge. I’m the girl who said yes to upheaval just to have something different. Hell, I even hacked off 9″ of hair this weekend. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, to imagine my life as something someone else can predict means I’m not living up to my potential.
Here’s what scares me. I’m in the crossroads of what next? Should I stay or should I go? Right now, I am unfocused, drifting, shoreless. No direction home. I don’t like planning for something without a game plan. I don’t like the potential for powerless. Here’s an idea: Imagine not knowing which people (if any) will be in your life a year from now. Does it make a difference to you? The same could be said for my sanity.

Maybe it’s the fact I am dressed in black today, ready to mourn the loss of someone’s mother. Maybe it’s the fact I’m in uncharactistically high heels and do not look anything like myself (and it’s not just the haircut). Maybe it’s the weather (what a cold and rainy day) and apathy has set in.

So, I thank my friend for getting it, getting me, and getting to the point. I may be standing on the platform in Indecision City, but I know someone out there has my direction home.

Homeward Not

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The Sign

I have lost my way home. In every sense of the word it is gone. Let’s start with the obvious. No trek to Maine. No boat ride. No getting back to good. Not this time. I will mourn a Memorial Day not on Monhegan. A junkie without her fix, no cure for the homesick. I don’t know what to make of this.

My current address is slipping away. My days there are numbered and all of a sudden I have this urge to be a homebody in this home. Soon, what I call mine will be someone else’s rent. I spent the weekend cleaning closets and scrubbing floors. Like visiting a dying friend I wanted time with my kitchen. For a mid~morning brunch I made a Maine inspired stratta. Homemade bread from the weekend before, spicy vegetarian sausage, crisp green broccoli, sweet Vidalias, creamy eggs+Tabasco+milk, a sprinkling of sharp cheddar cheese. Baked until golden and puffy. More hot sauce for me. For dinner I explored Mexico with a pan-sauteed mix of shredded golden potatoes, spicy Mexican sausage, shiitakes, cilantro and Vidalias. Served with homemade roasted tomatillo and garlic salsa. From scratch flour tortillas. I’m learning to control steam, if there is such a trick. And just to get ahead on the weekday dinners, roasted (skin-on) chicken, smoked with oak chips and cloves of garlic. I’m imagining that will be added to a white bean chili (served with the leftover salsa, of course) and maybe a twisted chicken salad…something smoky and sultry. Trying to reclaim something that isn’t mine. Is not.

The Other Home doesn’t exist yet we sat in front of a loan officer just the same. We spoke the language of calculations. Questions in the form of dollars were answered with quotes. Bank statements and pay stubs. Numbers spilled from our lips easily, as if we memorized our speeches and imagined our lasting impressions.

At the same time we gathered up the dollars to downpay our vacation. Home away from Home. To look forward to the date is to wish summer away, and yet – yet I cannot wait. We’ll start in the cottage of our honeymoon and end in Big Brother just across the way. I’m already tasting lobster and luna.

Such an odd place to be. I’m laying down the disappointment of missing homehome while prepaying on a later visit; I’m turning away from our here and now while it’s still our address and planning payments on an unknown one. We haven’t gone anywhere but I have lost my way home.