Cyclothymic Sentiments

pro-life

2006-12-28T18:28:00.000-08:00

"I dinn think I could get pregnant, all these years...then this little shit comes along!" Whap! she smacked my biological brother on the arm.

They sat at a dining table with a smoked glass top, metal tubing for legs and puffy chairs with wheels. It was from the discount furniture warehouse on State Highway 313; Chuck's Big Bargain Warehouse. Above the table hung a lamp that had a chain entwined with the cord. The chain/cord hung from the wickeresque lampshade in a sweeping fashion toward the corner, down the wall and over to the middle of the adjacent wall where it was plugged in. If you sat in the chair in front of the outlet, you had to be careful not to smack into the wall or get the wheels of the chair tangled up in the chain/cord.

The girl was trailer-hard. She wore a lace trimmed tank top emblazoned with "Ted Nugent" in November in the Midwest. Her jeans were worn Levi's. Her shoes were moccasin style boots that laced up to her knee. Her hands were large and muscled with thick fingers and nails stained yellow from nicotine. She had thick dark hair with "feathered" bangs and the most split ends I had ever seen. The bottom of her hair glowed in the light with millions of frayed filaments. You could tell she used no styling implements on her hair. She combed it into place wet and let it dry. She was quick to smile a big genuine smile that exposed her yellowed, crooked teeth and the one fang that was sideways, lodged between her other teeth. Her nose had been broken more than once, her lip split and her eyes had dark circles beneath them. Despite all of these things, she was attractive. She looked like a beaten up, worn out version of Tawny Kitaen after a lifetime of hard luck.

I was always a little alarmed by the affection my mother showed these girls. My mother hadn't hugged me since I was four. I don't remember her ever kissing me. But she grabbed up these white trash gap toothed chicks like they were her long lost children and kissed them and hugged them tightly and sincerely. This one was number four. The fourth mother of yet another of my brother's children. He had five little girls. One in Arkansas, one in Kentucky, one in Illinois and twins in Indiana. Now this one on the way; another little blonde blue eyed girl who wouldn't know her father and would be better off for it. Another little girl on welfare and food subsidies provided by the state who would never see a penny of financial support from her criminal father. In the coming months her father would beat her mother on a regular basis while she floated in the woman's womb. He would toss her naked mother out the door of the trailer into a twenty degree night to tumble down the makeshift wooden stairs, clutching her swollen belly. Her mother would consume a six pack or more of Budweiser and a pack of cigarettes on a daily basis while she formed.

My mother accompanied this one into the delivery room. When the placenta was delivered my mother swears it smelled like beer and the Vietnamese doctor exclaimed, "Ah! anothel Rittre beel baby!" She bore the physical signs of fetal alcohol syndrome; skin folds at the corners of her wide set eyes, a short nose with a low nasal bridge and a small midface.

Within two months of her birth, her father would kick her and her mother out of the ramshackle trailer to make room for the mother of his seventh and eighth daughters. This woman was employed at the Naughty But Nice Adult Bookstore. She was a booth girl. She sat behind a curtain in a small room seperated from a booth by a pane of glass. A man would enter the booth and insert money into a slot. The curtain would open and depending upon the amount of money, the booth girl would perform different sex acts up to and including penetrating herself with a sex toy.

I saw Number 6 for the first time when she was four months old. I was the youngest of my family and a teenager when I laid eyes upon her. I had never felt a pang of motherhood or obligation toward another person in my life. When her eyes locked with mine, the love I felt for her nearly knocked me over. I thought my heart had literally stopped. She was the most beautiful precious thing I had ever seen and I would stand in the wake of a hurricane, the path of a speeding locamotive, a charging tiger, anything to protect her. I knew I had to a good example for her, because she had no one else in the family who could show her a different way of life.

She is 16. She has a criminal record, is addicted to drugs and had a baby last year. She didn't finish high school and probably never will. Her baby is a boy. He will survive on welfare and state provided food subsidies. It is unlikely he will know his father and will probably be better off for it. His chances of finishing high school are low. His chances of going to jail are high.

Pro-Life.

assimilate

2006-07-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

"I just told you that an hour ago!" Candy's mood turned from overly sweet and kind to irritable and rude on a dime. I was trying to learn an antiquated Frankenstein's monster of a software program out of sequence, out of context and from a menopausal drunken barfly.
"I'm sorry, Candy, but I am not going to retain all of this information in a week. I really need to learn the process in sequential order. I also need to be given the time to take some notes, so I have something to reference." Candy was sitting in a chair next to the desk, holding her head in her hands. To her credit, she had been trying to train somebody with no experience, without the benfit of a manual or reference materials as well as do the job for three locations. None of the previous hires had worked out. Rumor was she had been training people for almost a year non-stop. I almost felt sorry for her.

"You the new girl for Ted Lane's department?" an old man eating a bear claw in the break room stared at me through big plastic safety glasses.
"Yes, I'm Katherine." I extended my hand.
He switched the bear claw from his right to his left and shook my hand.
"I'm Bob. I work in Production. I sure hope you can stick it out. They've had a bunch of 'em try it out. None of 'em stay."
"Oh..." I didn't know how to respond. I made a face at him.
He laughed. "Did I scare ya? It's not that bad. Just that damn Candy's crazy. Nobody can stand her long enough to learn the job. I don't envy you." He called the last sentence over his shoulder as he headed out to the Production area.
Over the next week, versions of this scenario would play out no less than eight times.

"There's just no time for that! When I started here, I had nothing! You just have to remember what I tell you!" She was getting kind of shrieky.

"Candy, everybody learns differently. It will take twice as long for me to learn this if I don't learn it in some kind of logical fashion. I need to start at the beginning and proceed through the steps sequentially. That is the only way I will assimilate this information." I want to punch her in her pink shiny alcoholic face.

"Fine! JUST STOP SPEAKING TO ME!" There she went. She lost it. She raised her voice so loud that all work and conversations in the adjoining cubicles stopped.

I turned to the phone on the desk, picked up the receiver and dialed.
"What are you doing?" she asked me. She looked over my shoulder to see the extension on the screen on the phone's base. It read, DIALING LANE, T.
"WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO CALL TED! WE CAN WORK THIS OUT!I am just very irritable. They think I may be becoming diabetic. It causes mood swings..."

"Hello, Ted Lane."

"Hi, Mr. Lane. This is Katherine."

"Hey, Katherine. How are you?"

"Good, Mr. Lane. I was wondering...I think maybe I need a break from training, and Candy needs a break from me. Would there be anything else I could do for the remainder of the day?"

"Yeah, I think so...why don't you come to my office? We can find something for you to do."

Like you, I thought in my nasty naughty bad girl mind.

"Thank you, Mr. Lane." I picked my bag up and walked out of the cubicle. Candy was still yammering about not needing to involve Ted, blah blah blah.

'bud

2006-07-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Today is Rosebud's birthday. The world is better with her in it. I don't say that about many people. I thank her mother and father for bringing her into being. She is good and decent and true. I have known her now for 11 years, and she's helped me through some of the worst times in my life. So much so, that when something bad happens to me, I often want to speak to the 'bud more than anybody else. Everybody who reads this today, please put out a positive mental birthday vibe into the universe for Rosebud.

Happy Birthday, Dear Friend.

statements

2006-07-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think I am constitutionally unable to function within this world's systems.

Then, I think, "Hmmm, maybe I am trying to change the world to conform to me. That is insanity."

Einstein said insanity is doing the the same thing over and over again while hoping for a different result.

Psychologists say addiction is doing something despite negative consequences.

The Dalai Lama says discipline is not hurting yourself.

What do you say?

consolation

2006-07-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

Monday. Nine o'clock a.m. Eastern time. I meet with the very unprofessional closet case Human Resources Director. He is snarky, sarcastic and condescending. I usually like those attributes in a person. Just not in a person who is making me feel uncomfortable about my resume. "Your resume....is....different."
I look past him to a portrait on the credenza. He, an average looking woman with dust colored hair and three kids, all wearing white t-shirts and jeans, seated on the floor of an Olan Mills Studio in some kind of very contrived attempt at randomness. "That portrait...faced out for my benefit...is...not foolin' anybody in this room, you hairy-backed Mary!" I wanted to say it, but I did not. I needed a job. I needed to work with hottish mannish Ted Lane. Finally, Liberace gave up on the charade of an interview. An offer of employment had already been extended to me from Ted. He could have rescinded the offer, but there could have been a liability issue. He took me down the corridor to meet with the woman who would be training me. As we approached the cubicles, maniacal female laughter broke out. It was shrill and piercing and irritating and over the top.
"The musical trill of laughter that you hear is Candy. And yes, she is always like this." He stopped at the last cubicle. She was a faded red head with the pink shiny skin of an alcoholic. Her haircut was home made and she wore a dress that one could find at Goodwill; a blue/gray sack of a thing with a windowpane stitching pattern and a matching short sleeved jacket. She was wearing 'suntan' hosiery. The kind you buy at the grocery that comes in an egg. Her shoes were shiny Payless pumps circa 1984. They were sky blue, oval toed and decidedly plastic. On her squinchy eyelids was orange (think Crayola orange) glitter shadow. It had run into the crevices of her crow's feet as if she had been performing under hot stage lights. She was, in the words of my favorite black transexual make-up artist from Saks Fifth Avenue, Xaviana, a hot mess.
"HIIIIIIII!" She screeched at me with the most forced manic smile on her face. I thought of the pictures I have seen of children whose parents have documented thier every move from conception. When told to smile, they robotically break into the biggest smile possible, eyes clenched shut, lips stretched to breaking. I also thought of those waitresses and retail workers who have a super forced cheery demeanor that masks an seething raging murderous contempt for humanity. I am always afraid they are one customer service issue away from flipping the hell out and gouging your eyes out with a fork or a hanger, respectively.
Her cubicle was jam packed. Every surface of her desk was covered with ...stuff. She had crammed four filing cabinets, a shelving unit and a small table as well as her desk into the tiny space. Everywhere you moved, you touched something.
Her computer had an image of kitten hanging onto a rope with the saying, "Hang In There!" for a screen saver. On top of her monitor was a little angel figurine with "I Believe in Angels" painted on the base.
This was it. I had secured a job. In Hell.

desperation

2006-07-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

Ronald Reagan's voice was speaking to me. "Katherine, this is Ted Lane. I received your resume and would like to speak to you about the position. I will be in the office until 5 pm eastern. You can reach me at ###-###-####, extension 179. I look forward to talking with you."
Ted Lane's brother is the owner of the Palookaville Butcher Shop. The Lane family is from a tiny little town nearby. Coincidentally, my mother's younger siblings grew up with the Lane Boys (all five of them; Theodore, Edward, Fredrick, Jedidiah and Zedekiah. You got it; Ted, Ed, Fred, Jed and Zed.). My cousin Bill happens to be best friends with the brother/butcher, Ed, and mentioned to him that I was looking for a gig. Ed knows me because I got his daughter a summer job at the coolest clothing store in town, and because I always bug him to carry organically fed free range meats.
The Lane boys I have seen are a somewhat goofy looking lot. Gangly tall, large featured and oddly mannered. I was surprised at Ted's polished delivery on the phone. Trips to the butcher shop usually entailed some very badly disguised oggling from Ed and blatant oggling from Zed, who works with Ed and seems to have sustained a head injury or was born with some kind of developmental disorder. Upon entry, Zed greets most female customers with, "Hello. You are very beautiful."
Should you happen to go to the butcher shop and ask if Ed is in, Zed will say, "NO! BUT I'M HERE!"
I arranged to meet with Mr. Lane, who I assumed was the oldest and most accomplished of the lot given his professional and articulate demeanor and Gipper-whispery voice on the phone. I drove forty minutes to North End, where his business was located. It looked impressive, with several large trucks arriving and departing. I approached the receptionist and told her my name and that I was here to speak to Mr. Lane. She rang him and asked if I would like to sit as Mr. Lane would be just a moment. I looked at the bas-relief wall coverings depicting historical images of the indigenous peoples of North End. A tall older gentleman with white hair appeared in the lobby. I smiled and started to approach, but he frowned ever so slightly at me and looked perplexed, so I stopped. Obviously not Mr. Lane. The indigenous peoples of North End continued fishing in the St. Joseph river. The lovely receptionist acted like she didn't notice my faux-pas. Gracious. Just like a receptionist should be.
I turned to see a tall man approaching. He was 6'4" with dark hair graying slightly at the temples. He had large brown eyes and a prominent, but not beakish nose. He was well-proportioned and still had the remnants of his former college basketball player physique. He was oddly familiar. He had a passing similarity to Ed. If you stood them next to each other, you might think they could be brothers. Oh shit. Oh no. My potential new boss was hot.
"Katherine? Ted Lane." he extended his hand and smiled. white teeth. The Ronald Reagan voice now sounded more like Jack Nicholson. Younger Jack Nicholson. I placed my hand in his.
"Yes. Nice to meet you, Mr. Lane."
"Thanks for coming in on such short notice." He turned to the receptionist, "Martine, please hold my calls."
Martine smirked at me. "Don't let him lead you astray" she said.
Mr. Lane laughed over his shoulder.
"I'll call you if I need any assistance." I replied.

stay tuned

2006-06-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

I have recently become employed. I will post again soon. I promise. I love you people.

wayward bats

2006-05-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

"Something's in here." I said.
"I think you're right. I think it's a bat."
"Oh, my God! You have to get it out of here."
"Don't worry, I've done this before." he rolled off the side of bed onto his feet. "I need a broom, a trash bag and some rubber gloves."
"I'm not leaving this room."
"Tell me where they are again."
I explained the location of each item. My hero went about finding them in the dark. He emerged, all 6'4" of him, wearing boxers emblazoned with Chicago Cubs logos, my yellow dishwashing gloves, his red hair and freckles and brandishing a broom like a baseball bat.
"You stay in here." He closed the french doors behind him. I watched the bat fly crazily along my ceiling. My protector bent his knees slightly and swung the broom. Smack! Thud! The bat landed on my antique table. I screamed. My bat slayer picked him up and tossed him into the garbage bag.
"Do ya wanna see him?"
"No."
"Were you afraid he was going to attack you?"
"No. I was afraid he was gonna poo on my expensive stuff. Did he poo anywhere?"
"Naw, I don't see any bat poo."
"I am so glad you were here."

That was one of the best times of my life.

stolen from meegs

2006-05-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

*A Little About Me:*
Favorite male hunk.....	John Gruden
Favorite female actress....	Julianne Moore
Favorite position....	reclined
Favorite sport....	tennis
Favorite restaurant....	KiKi's Bistro
Who do you love....	nobody and everybody
Favorite picture....
Favorite memory....	a moment when I was in love and convinced
Wedding song....	will never need to choose
Anniversary....
Babies....	none
Perspective boy names....	Kirkland, Ellis
Perspective girl names....	Winsett, Jane
favorite alcoholic drink(s)....	Grey Goose and tonic with lime
Red or White wine....	depends
Pets....	Pembroke Welsh Corgi
Current vehicle....	horrible gas guzzler
Favorite color(s)....	red, blue
Favorite movie(s)....	Sling Blade, Magnolia, Forrest Gump...
Favorite word....	sublime, persnickety, cacophony...
When I have time....	I have no money, When I have money, no time.
Phrase that discribes you....	an enigma in a riddle in pajamas
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

no place like homeless

2006-05-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

We came back to our unfurnished home in Palookaville. We were not supposed to be there. My parents had defaulted on the land contract, so it had reverted back to the previous owners. The elctricity had been turned off, so we kept food in a styrofoam cooler. We used flashlights to find our way to the bathroom at night. We basically lived out of the master bedroom because my parent's old bed was still in there. When my mother sold the bed, we set up lawn chairs; the kind that fold out like a chaise. If you put a blanket on them, they're pretty comfortable. We slept in our clothes. I went back to my old school. It was as if I never left. Nobody knew I was living in a house we had previously abandoned. Nobody knew I was eating from a cooler and sleeping on a lawn chair. The only difference was when the teacher called for the kids to come up and get an orange ticket emblazoned with the words,"FREE LUNCH", I had to join the line.
My mother tried to get her former job back. I don't know if they had already replaced her, were on a hiring freeze, or she had a bad work record, but they refused. I came home from school one day and a strange car was in the driveway. My mother drove a shiny new red car. This car was an old faded dirty red car with a hatchback. I was afraid to go in the house so I lingered outside. Finally mom called me in.
"Who's here?" I asked.
"Nobody" she said as if there wasn't an old faded dirty red car with a hatchback in our driveway.
"Who's car is that?"
"Well, it's ours."
"Where's your new car?"
"I sold it. We needed the money. This one will be fine for now."
I didn't know it at the time, but the car had been repossessed. The beat up car had been purchased for my mother by her friend's husband, with whom she had been having an affair even before we went to Tennessee.
She started to be gone alot. At first she enlisted a teenage girl from the neighborhood to watch me. Her name was Cheryl. She wore stoner chick clothes, like tight jeans and the cropped concert t-shirts of bands like AC/DC, Ted Nugent and Journey. She wore oversized flannel shirts for jackets. Her eyes were rimmmed in back eyeliner. Cheryl lived in a crazy house down the road. It was full of feral stoner children who had several different mothers and fathers. There was always some kind of activity going on. It usually involved screaming, heavy metal music and long haired teenage boys with no shirts on. Cheryl talked to me like I was an adult.
"You know, I was in love with Ted for so long. But all we ever did was get high and screw. I would go to his house and we'd smoke a joint and then we'd fuck and then we would smoke another joint and then I would go home." she giggled and threw her hands up, "It was like, Buzz, Bed, Buzz, Bye!"
I never knew any person other than parents who'd actually done it.
Soon, babysitting funds were not in the budget, so I came home alone to the empty house and sat there until I fell asleep.
One night the stoner boys broke in through the sliding glass door. I lay motionless and listened to them whisper.
"It's empty."
"I thought they were livin' here. Aren't they livin' here?"
"Yeah, the little sister comes here after school."
"What the fuck? Is this their food? In a cooler?"
"Where's their shit?"
"I don't know, man..."
They came around the corner and I'm sure were surprised to see me sleeping in a lawn chair in the middle of the living room. They surrounded the chair. I pretended to sleep.
"I say we fuck her."
"You're a sick bastard. That's a little kid."
"She's got some titties, man. I've seen 'em pokin' outta her shirt."
"No way, man. that's a little girl, man!"
"I'm fuckin' her! I didn't break in here for nothin'!"
"Leave her alone, man. C'mon, let's get the fuck out of here."
They left with our cooler.
When my mom got home and realized the sliding glass door was broken and the cooler was gone, she went to a pay phone and called the police. The police had received a complaint from the previous owners about our squatting, so they asked us to leave the house. We put our suitcases in the hatchback and slept the remainder of the night in the car in a parking lot. I didn't have to go to school the next day. I spent some nights at my Grandmother's house. We spent some nights on friend's couches. We spent some nights in the car. I started to spend weekends with my big sister at her boyfriend's house. My dad would call and we would talk about me coming to Houston for Christmas. I was going to fly on a plane all by myself. I only saw my mother when she drove me to school and in the afternoon when she picked me up and dropped me off at the place where I was to sleep. Most days she picked me up, she was already drunk.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Kath?"

"When I come to Houston, can I just stay with you?"

decide to pretend to forget

2006-05-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Before my father drove away for the last time of their marriage, he handed money to my mother.
"I gave your mother two hundred dollars. Half of it is for you."
And then he was gone.

Our house was empty. My mother had sold off our furniture piece by piece. It was odd to come home and find no dining table, just divots in the carpet where all the legs used to be. It was an hour before I realized the dog was gone.
"Where's Tuffy?" I looked at her bowl, still filled with water by the pantry.
"Ha!" said my mother proudly as she handed me a paper plate with some food from a box, bag or can on it. "You didn't even know she was gone!"
"What happened to her?" I felt that weird feeling in my sternum, the one that precedes strong emotion. Our dogs always ended up shot or run over.
"Don't cry! You never played with her and it took you a good hour before you even realized she was gone! Besides, she wouldn't quit shitting under the table!"
My parents never trained our dogs properly. They rarely took them to the vet. They were never leashed and ran loose. Inevitably, they would die as a result and our parents would be angry with us. As if we instinctively knew how to care for something and had income to purchase supplies and vet care. I think they thought an occasional "Didja let that dog out?" between cigarettes and arguments sufficed for a thorough explanation and demonstration.
"Did you sell her?" I made the face that usually precedes the tears. But after the initial facial contortion...nothing. I had been feeling numb around this time. So many things had happened that I had aquired a flat affect. I was nine.
"No, I gave her to Jeff's friend's family. You know, Jerry 'n 'em, out in the country with the big fenced in yard. She'll like it there."
I felt a little sick when she mentioned Jerry. He was the friend of my teenaged juvenile deliquent brother. One day while he was at our house, he came out of the bathroom and showed his flaccid penis to me. It was the most ugly disgusting thing I had ever seen. I screamed and ran out the back door. My brother and his friends laughed.
The only furniture left was my parent's big bed. We slept in it one last time and left it in the house. We were off to a small town in Tennessee. My mother's childhood boyfriend lived there. He was also recently divorced and he and mom had been talking on the phone for weeks. We drove for a few hours and pulled off at a truck stop.
"Can I have my money?" I asked
"What money?" Mom was looking in the rearview mirror, fluffing up her perm and putting on her lipstick.
"Dad said half the money he gave you was mine."
"Well, how do you think we are going to eat and buy gas?"
"That's your problem."
"You'll think that's my problem when we're starving on the side of the road."
She reach into her big brown purse and handed me a twenty. "That's all you're getting for now."
We went to the restroom and while Mom got coffee to go, I perused the gift shop. They had stuffed animals. Many of my toys had been sold at a garage sale. The remainder were boxed and stored at my grandmother's house. On the shelf was the sweetest buff colored teddy bear. He had an expensive toy maker's tag hanging from one paw. The price tag said $19.99. That was the most expensive bear I had ever seen.
"Mom, I need another dollar." I said as she tried on sunglasses by the register.
"Good Lord, child! What are you buying?"
I took her over to the bear display. "Him."
"Katherine! That is just too much to give for a bear!"
I took him from the shelf. "Look at him. Touch him." I held him up to her.
She took him and looked into his face. "Well, he's a pretty bear, isn't he? and so soft..Yes, I guess we have to take him, don't we?"
I nodded. As the cashier rang us, Mom made jokes. "Can we eat that bear if we run out of money in Memphis?"
I made up a story about my dad giving the bear to me before he left. I decided if I ever had a friend, and that friend saw the bear, I would tell them the made-up story.

We kept driving. I remember very little about the remainder of the drive. We got lost in Memphis. We saw the gates of Graceland. Somehow, we ended up at a rat infested trailer parked in a lot full of weeds in Elmville, Tennessee.
My mother had quit her job at a factory that was featured in a major magazine as one of the best places to work in the nation. We had no health insurance. She had very little money left because she had been drinking and gambling quite heavily that summer. We had the car and our suitcases. All for a man she had not seen in 24 years. I think about my obsession with Charlie Brown Shoes. Would I have carried it that far? With a nine year old child in tow?
Charles was a big guy with black hair and blue sad hound dog eyes. He was kind to me. They put me in school right away. For the first time, the kids and teachers were genuinely friendly to me. I didn't feel the least bit outcast. They fought over who sat by me at lunch. The teachers were very complimentary of my handwriting. I made a friend who lived down the street. I met Charles' sons and we got along great. We went to visit Charles' father in Mississippi. Mom and Charles went out to drink and we slept in the den. The boys were on the floor and I was on a sofa. I woke up in the middle of the night. Charles' father was sitting at the end of the sofa, smoking a cigarette with his left hand. His right hand was between my legs.
I didn't tell my mother until Monday morning. She was going to drive me to school.
"Mom, Charles' father touched me while you guys were out drinking."
"What do you mean he touched you?"
"He put his hand under the covers and put it...put it where my underwear is." That's the only way I could say it to her.
"No, honey. He was just looking for something...or putting your blanket on you."
I didn't say anything else. It was no use. They were adults. They did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted and they didn't ask you because you were a kid and you have no rights because you have no money. That was my logic. That's how my world operated. Sell my dog. Sell my furniture. Sell my toys. Move me every year. Drive away to Houston. Drive me to another state on a whim. Put your old hand between my legs. Don't ask me. Don't consider me.
The next week Charles' father came to visit. I cried and begged my mother to sleep with me.
"Katherine, what is going on? You've been sleeping in here for over a week now. What are you scared of?"
"I don't want him to come in here and touch me!" I was sobbing.
My mother looked as if she had been slapped in the face. She didn't realize what I had tried to say to her in the car. She slept with me that night. In the morning, she got up and made coffee and sat at the kitchen table smoking. I was still laying in bed when Charles' father shuffled in and lifted up the blanket. Suddenly, my mother was behind him. "Eugene, are you looking for your bag?"
"Uh...Uh..yeah." he dropped the blanket as soon as he heard her voice.
"I didn't put it in here. I left it in the other room."
"Oh! Thank you, dear. I usually stay in here." Charles' father left that day.
Over the course of the next few days, my mother received a call from a woman who claimed to be Charles' girlfriend. The girlfriend told my mother that when Charles left for his job, he would really be coming to meet her. She gave my mother the address of the bar. My mother went and sure enough, Charles was with this woman. He told Mom the truth. The woman had been his girlfriend for many years, even during his marriage. They had split up when he became involved with my mother. Now, Charles wanted to reconcile with the girlfriend. We had to clear out. Back to Palookaville. We had been in Elmville for three weeks.

that's what jesus would do

2006-05-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

I am reeling from the number of people who have contacted members of our family to intrude upon the private family services. It was my mother's wish. For reasons personal to her, my mother wanted her funeral services attended exclusively by family members. As outgoing as she was, she didn't have many friends that came to her home or accompanied her to social events. In the last few years of her life, she attended a local church and "became a member." "Becoming a member" required attending classes with considerable fees for required texts penned by neo-fundamentalist Christian authors. I had always been under the impression that becoming a member of the Christian faith required accepting Jesus of Nazareth to be the son of God and one's own personal saviour(I seem to recall a story about Jesus cleansing the moneychangers out of the temple...?). Despite her limited resources, she would forego having disposable income from her tiny disability check to purchase the books and attend the classes. Approximately a year and a half ago, she confided to me that she didn't feel particularly close to the women of the church. She felt "snubbed" by them. I listened to her and sympathized. I didn't quite understand, given these women frequently called my mother to bring food, various supplies, monetary donations, and her own time and effort whenever they took on a project. Also, exclusion seems in marked contrast to the spirit of Christianity, which I thought was foremost a compassionate belief system. It was around this time my mother started to use credit cards to purchase shoes and clothing from the more expensive stores in our area. She had previously told me that she had come to a point in her life wherein she no longer coveted material things. I was concerned about her abrupt reversal and about the reckless spending. At this time she also started to buy expensive home goods; appliances, decor, bedding, etc. She also started driving 45 minutes to a posh department store to have her hair styled. Things began to make sense to me when I went to make arrangements for my mother's funeral. The Knifeler Funeral Home has been a staple of Palookaville County for three generations. There, while Mr. Knifeler made calls in the other room, Mrs. Knifeler came in and offered her condolences. She was wearing a pair of Gucci sandals with a bracelet-sleeved pastel boucle suit. Her glasses were designer. Her haircut was definitely expensive. She had movie star too-white veneered teeth and a deep tan. She told us she knew my mother from the Bible classes at the Church. I recalled a story mom told me. During a ladies group meeting, they asked for volunteers for an event. As a job was called out, different people would raise their hands and the person in charge would choose and write down the names next to the corresponding job. Despite raising her hand for every job, my mother's name was not chosen. The last available job of greeter was announced. My mother raised her hand and the person in charge looked pointedly over my mother and said, "Well, maybe we could ask the general church population for volunteers for greeters." and never acknowledged my mother or wrote down her name. My mother teared up as she told me this story. Soon after, my mother stopped attending the church altogether when her aunt by marriage, a Baptist icon of sorts in the Palookaville community known for her selfless contributions to the church, started to avoid her. All of this happened a short while after my ne'er-do-well brother was arrested for cocaine possession and my wayward teenage niece gave birth to an illegitimate interacial baby. My mother sought the counsel of the head pastor for solace during this time. Soon, the details of these events had spread to the entire church population.
Imagine my surprise when this same aunt called to inquire about bringing a group of non-family members from the church to my mother's services. I was flabbergasted by the request,given the obituary stated the services were private. I told her I was grateful for the support and touched by the request, but it was my mother's wish that her services be private and I didn't feel it was appropriate. I hoped she and the ladies understood it was important to me to make sure her wishes were carried out. Aunt Jesus assured me she understood and would pass it along to the ladies. Less than an hour later I get a call from my beleagured stepfather; a not especially bright accidental Christian, meaning he subscribes to Christianity when he can manipulate scripture to justify a point in an argument (example; he once justified procuring prostitutes by quoting a scripture).
"I wanted to tell you I made a retraction in the Palookaville Times. I have decided to open the service."

"Did Aunt Jesus and her disciples call you and work some fire and brimstone voodoo on you?"

"Nah," he lied. "I've gotten a lot of calls and your brother has already invited people, so I thought it would be better to open it up."

By people, my stepfather actually meant the scum of the earth. Prior to the wedding of my mother and stepfather, my mother was an alcoholic. In order to be where the beer was, she associated with the bar flys of Palookaville. When my mother got sober, none of these people ever associated with her again and if they did it was in an attempt to get her to drink. None of these so called friends attended the wedding nor sent congratulations. Now, surprisingly, they crawled from the woodwork to crash my mother's services via invitation of my opportunistic psychotic drunken brother who was probably drinking on their tab.

My mother had three requests for her funeral services.
One; no viewing. She felt it was in bad taste to have people looking at a dead corpse. She preferred a closed casket with a nice photo set atop it.

My stepfather insisted she be viewed "for closure."

Two; no cremation. She was opposed to cremation despite the practicality.

My stepfather insisted upon cremation for financial reasons.

Three; a private service for family only.

Now that was shot to hell. Not one of her wishes will be fulfilled. I am profoundly disturbed.

Trust no one. Get it in writing. Be wary of the Jesus people. Amen.

right now

2006-05-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Right now I feel better. I cleaned my apartment and walked Henry down to the corner to pick up a copy of the Palookaville Times. I read my mother's obituary. It sounds dignified. Yesterday, I picked out my mother's last outfit for her viewing. A cream silk blouse and black pants. She will be dignified in death. I have not slept much since Thursday. I slept for a couple of hours early this morning. When I woke up it occurred to me that there are things that I am free of now. There are things I was doing soley for my mother. Living in Palookaville, making nice with certain members of the family, etc. I no longer have those obligations. At least it's something.

tether

2006-05-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

I am precarious at best. My last tether to this life is gone. What will obligate me to remain here now? A small dog with short legs, a possibility of a moment of nirvana, the promise of a different life without this ill mind? I have nothing. My few friends call and offer me help and I am grateful from the core of my being. My heart is filled momentarily, but what can they do for me? I am suddenly middle aged and I have nothing. I will lose my apartment soon, and then my car and very soon, even the ability to write on this site; something that has sustained me these many months after the hospital, the mind loss, the end of last of the reserves of my youthful ambition that allowed me to plod along and make a living for myself. And now, my poor mother, my poor miserable mother with her sad limited life; the only person who checked in with me on a regular basis, the only person I felt I had to try to function for, my last frayed thread of a link, is gone so suddenly and so shockingly and I have no last resort. How lucky are the masses with their faith and hope and fabricated alliances and caution to the wind offspring that anchor them to the earth. I have nothing. A small dog with short legs, non-committal relatives burdened with their own lives, friends with normal relationships and support systems who earnestly ask, "What can I do for you?" and I think, "Can you give me a reason to get through this next hour? and can you call me in an hour and give me another? Can you give me a new family; the one I dream about from New England? The one with boundaries and efficacy and resources? The one with manageable addictions, college educations, no genetic predispositions to mental illness, some appropriate sense of obligation, belief systems rooted in logic and reasonable demeanors? Can you give me that please? That's all I need." I have nothing. And I know I have more than some. That doesn't comfort me right now.

Goodbye Mom

2006-05-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

If you notice that the sun shines just a bit dimmer, the wind blows just a little softer, it's because a force was taken from the world today. Goodbye, Mom.

isolation seed

2006-05-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

My key is on a chain I keep around my neck. When I get off the bus, I walk up the driveway very slowly. I am supposed to stay inside once I am in the house. I watch the neighbor kids get off the bus and make their way to their front door. I see Matthew's head bob along the length of one of the many cars in the driveway. Matthew is lean and tall with perpetually tan skin and hair that is dust brown at the base and bright blonde at the tips. He almost died last summer when he siphoned gas out of the van to ride his three wheeler and accidentally drank some. He makes me feel funny when I look at him, like something building up inside that will burst out. I can't look at him for very long or I feel ashamed in front of God. If you are outside, you are not alone so I linger before opening the door. The phone starts to ring as I drop my book bag and run to get the avacado green rotary phone on the little built in desk by the window in the kitchen. It's my mother and I know this before I pick up. We have the same conversation we always have every day at 3:15. She tells me to stay inside and not to open the door to strangers. She will see me in a little while. I can hear the sounds of her factory in the background. I hang up. Then I do things I shouldn't. I look in my parent's drawers sometimes or eat ice cream. I wipe off the spoon with a paper towel and put it back in the drawer. I talk to myself. I look at all of my mother's make up in her drawer in the bathroom. I turn on the television, but decide to leave it off so I may hear if a demon or ghoul decides to appear in the house to kill me. Sometmes I play in the canisters that hold the flour and sugar and coffee. I make a big mess on the counter and my mother says, "What is this all over the counter? I don't know where this is coming from." Our house is very old and I am sure people have died here. Then I sit at my favorite spot between the coffee table and floral printed couch and open the drawer of the coffee table. All of my crayons and coloring books and sketch pads are kept here. I remember my book bag for a minute and then decide to pretend to forget to do my math after dinner. If I wait, I can stay up later than everybody else, because it takes me forever to do my homework. Sometimes my dad comes out to check on me. I ask him to sharpen my pencil and he takes out his knife and whittles the end of my pencil to a perfect sharp tip. Then he says, "It's gettin' late, Kath. You almost done?" My friend Justine says my dad looks just like the guy on Fish. I practice drawing all of my best things, like cartoon dogs, cats and monkeys. I practice my handwriting by re-doing assignments from school. It seems like forever until I hear my dad's green truck in the drive and then mom and dad come in and mom says, "Katherine, you left your bag right in the door!" and my dad looks around incredulously and asks,"Where's dinner?" and I am not sure if he is serious, even though he asks me every night.

dumbass

2006-05-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

I am such a dumbass. I started using the phrase "donkeypunch" cause I thought it sounded hilarious. I had no idea what it really meant. I will not be using the phrase as liberally in the future. For those that do not know, it is a phrase used to describe a sex act in which the male punches the female in the head at the point of orgasm, causing the abrupt contraction of the vaginal muscles, whereby intensifying the experience.
Good Lord.
We are all going straight to hell.

appeal

2006-05-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms. Katherine:

We are writing about your claim for Long Term Disability Benefits. We recently contacted Dr. Arnett on March 31, 2006 requesting additional information that we need to review your claim.
We sent a second request for this information on May 2, 2006. (See enclosed) We would appreciate it if you would call this doctor and request the information be sent to us as soon as possible so that we may determine your eligibility for benefits.
I have contacted Dr. Barden Arnett at least 3 times myself between March 31st and May 2nd. I have personally taken copies of these requests to his office and watched as the receptionist placed the copies in his incoming mailbox. I decided to go to Dr. Arnett’s office and sit in the waiting room until I could appeal to him personally to comply with the request.

“Hi, Monica.” I say to his receptionist through her plexi-glass window. She sees I have brought the requests again and smiles. “I’ve come again to see if I can do anything to get these requests taken care of.”
She grins at me. “Dr. Arnett is with a patient, but as soon as he is finished, I will make sure he takes a moment to speak with you.” She is enjoying this. I have personally appealed to her each time I have called to inquire. She is professional and diplomatic in her responses, but lets me know in her tone of voice and facial expressions that she finds Dr. Arnett’s negligence in responding just as frustrating.

Patients come, patients go. I read the dated magazines in the waiting room and watch CNN. Occasionally, I see Arnett peer through to make sure I am still there. I nod to him and raise my eyebrows in an expression I hope conveys, “Still here, motherfucker.”

I watch through the 2’x 2’ square as Arnett flips through a file and consults with Monica. Finally, he comes out to the waiting area.
“Katherine…” he says as a greeting of sorts.
“Dr. Arnett.” I respond. I start to speak and as is his habit, he sees my lips start to part and he immediately interrupts me.
“I just received this request on Friday. I will get this information together and send it to them in the next couple of days.”
“Actually, Dr. Arnett, this request was sent on March 31st. I brought another copy of the request approximately two weeks ago, and you were sent a third request on May 2nd.”

“I was on vacation.” He lied.
Oh my god! You weak ass bitch. You are a fucking Doctor of Psychiatry and you are lying. This is straight out of “SCRUBS.” I look around for Ashton Kutcher. I look around for Dilbert. No, this is reality. I came to this guy for help with getting my head together.

I do not respond. How does one respond to being blatantly lied to? By a so-called medical professional? Whom you are relying upon to provide much needed information to your benefits provider so you can possibly get some income and not lose your car, your apartment and your dog?

He continues. “I didn’t know you were not intending to continue treatment with me. I usually like to meet with my patients to go over the information being sent.”

“The request is for all of my health providers between January 2005 and March 2006. If you will please send the information along with a copy of the request, I would appreciate it. I would also like to know the name of your administrator.”

He clutched the file to his chest and his head snapped hard to the left. He peered at me through his glasses with his left eye.
“Eck…Eck-scuse me? The name of muh-mmy administrator?”

“Yes. The name of your administrator. The person you report to…the person who oversees your practice within the organization.” Professional throat punch to you, you lying pussy!

“Uh, we-we-well, that would be Mary Jane McIntosh. Katherine, I assure you that the information will be sent out in the next couple of days. There’s no need to involve administration…”

“Dr. Arnett, I have no income right now. I have received no income since March 22nd. I feel it is necessary to involve someone else. You have received 3 requests. I am in limbo waiting for the determination of these benefits. The undue stress of appealing to you repeatedly for compliance is not exactly conducive to my mental health.”

With that I spin and head toward the elevator. When I reach the first floor, Dr. Arnett is already there. He hovers around the information booth. I approach anyway and ask the attendant if there’s any way I can speak to Mary Jane McIntosh. She calls her secretary. I am connected while Dr. Arnett carefully studies the coffee pot and supplies on the counter directly behind the information attendant.

I explain the situation to Mrs. McIntosh and inform her that I am leaving a copy of the requests for her with the information attendant. She promises to make sure the requests are sent the next day. She asks me, “How many requests have been sent to Dr. Arnett?” When I tell her three and that he explained to me he was on vacation during the time of the first two requests, she asks, “On vacation?” and I say, “Yes, on vacation.” To this she replies, “Mmmm-hmm. Interesting.” And then promises again the matter will be resolved the next day.

Don’t fuck with the crazy girl.

something to ponder...

2006-05-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

Consider; a carton of organic strawberries.
Consider; a box of cake mix.

The strawberries are grown with no chemicals.
The cake mix is full of chemicals.

The carton housing the strawberries is not remarkable in any way; just a clear plastic container with a sticker in the corner identifying the farm from whence they came.
The cake mix box is a full-color, photographed, graphic affair complete with cooking instructions. A design team, a graphic design company, a commercial photographer and an artist have had a hand in the creation of this box. Several mock-ups of the box were created for review by a committee of people. The winners had to be reviewed by the board of directors at the huge corporation that owns the cake mix company. the winning box had to require no telling how much money to be implemented in the box factory.

The strawberries are from a farm that does not have any marketing or advertising campaigns I have ever seen in national magazines or on televisions.
The cake mix company has full page ads in any home oriented magazine geared toward females. They also have television ads.

The strawberries are grown in dirt. They are plucked from the dirt, sorted, placed in their ordinary plastic containers and shipped.
The cake mix is produced by huge machines in huge facilities with hundreds of
employees. Fleets of trucks take gazillions of these boxes to their destinations each day.

The strawberries are damn near 5 bucks.
The cake mix is $1.00.

This kind of stuff makes me believe in conspiracy theories.

Am I mad or does this make sense?

not so much

2006-05-06T01:35:00.000-07:00

Some more digging revealed Scrappy lied about his name, age, education, former police experience and pretty much everything else he told me. He has a rap sheet about a foot long. No more coffee for me. So discouraging.

suitor

2006-05-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

"I really appreciate this." He was wrapping a cord around one of the massive pieces of iron. "Hey, I don't want to impose, but I would like to take you out sometime. For lunch or brunch or dinner or something...?"
His head is big. It's like a tan basketball. He's a large guy. Professional football large. His facial features are small. He looks Southern, like Elvis Presley-Southern. You know how Elvis had great facial features, but still managed to look slightly retarded? That's what I mean. He looks Native American to me. His skin is an even tan color. He's standing on the bed of a pick-up that looks like it was towed up from the seventh circle of hell. He just single handedly lifted three 18 feet long solid iron support beams onto a pick up truck. He is the neighborhood scrap metal guy. You know, the guy that drives around and looks for metal all day and then sells it at a salvage yard. I am being asked out by the scrap man. The first offer in well over a year, and it's from Basketball Head, the junk man.

Life is a series of humiliating moments dropped amidst spans of mind-numbing, soul-crushing, spirit-breaking tedium. I once had a friend who was a friend of an author and winner of an Iowa Award. He would often make an observation and punctuate it with these two questions, "Why do we go on? How do we go on?" I pondered those questions now...
"Oh, that's O.K., really...It's no big deal." I started up the stairs quickly. A day before I'd shown Ol' Scrappy the beams and asked my landlord if he could have them.
"Alright, I just thought I'd ask..." He turned and started to strap in the second beam. I just hurt the feelings of the scrap metal man. His life had to suck. He looks for garbage all day. I am such a bitch. Who the hell am I? I am unemployed and batshit crazy.
"So, Arthur, what's your last name?" I call down.
"Lee!" he calls up.
"Lee?"
"Yeah."
"Are you from here?"
"Yeah. I graduated from PalookaNorth in '88. Then I went to Midwestern I State for four years."
"Oh my God! I graduated from PalookaSouth in '88. Then I went to Midwestern I state for two years! Where did you live at State?"
"I lived off campus with my aunt and uncle. I didn't join a fraternity or anything."
"Wow! That's pretty crazy. We both graduated the same year and went to the same school."
"Huh! Yeah, that is!"
Arthur went on to tell me about majoring in Criminology, leaving State and becoming a Palookaville Police Officer. He sustained an injury while on duty and decided to quit law enforcement. He then went to work for a company that went under. He started a business of his own, but it didn't take off.
"Now, here I am...Out here like Sanford and Son!" he gestured to his truck.
"At least you don't have a boss!" I offered.
"Hey, why don't you consider going out with me sometime? Just for coffee or something?"
I shrugged as if to say maybe.
"Alright, the next time I'm in the neighborhood, if you're out with your dog, I'll stop and talk to ya."
Did I just consent to going out with the scrap guy?
I needed to confer. I called Siobhan. "I just got asked out...by the garbage man."
"Whaat? What garbage man?"
"You know, the guy I told you about, Basketball Head-the scrap guy."
"Oh, yeah! Wait, what's a scrap guy?"
"You know, one of those guys who drives around looking for scrap metal all day."
Siobahn cracked up. "Katherine! Ezra does that! Not on a small scale like those guys, but basically when he does a demo, or buys a lot of older work trucks at auction, he takes what he needs and scraps out the rest for thousands of dollars."
"That's different. Ezra has a legitimate business. These guys are digging through garbage."
I wanted to believe that the economy of this cesspool of a town has forced this former police officer into a life of scrap metal salvaging. I had to give him credit for working. I imagined remaking the scrap metal guy into a successful entrepeneur. With my encouragement, Scrappy could become a legit business owner. We could marry and be millionaires. People would say, "She met him when he was digging through the garbage, and look at them now!"
I consulted Ezra. "Do you know a guy who scraps with a big basketball head and a white truck that looks like it came from the Thunderdome? Name's Arthur?"
"White guy?" Ezra asked and spit the seeds from an apple over the stair rail. Ezra exists on a diet of mostly fruit. If you drive through our town and see an orange peel in the driveway of an historic home or a construction site, it was from Ezra. You can bet money on it. Siobhan can track his whereabouts by the fruit peels left behind.
"Yeah, kinda tan and big like a lumberjack."
"Yeah, I know him."
"Is he shady?"
"Well, we had a situation at one of our demo sites. Thousands of dollars worth of metal was removed from the site. We looked into it, checked around at all the salvage yards and found out it was him."
"Oh my God!" I was exasperated.
Ezra grinned. "Now, wait a minute...when we talked to him, he said our father had given him permission. We asked Dad and sure enough, he'd told him to take anything he wanted."
"So he's not shady?"
"Well, there was another thing that happened. He cut the (some mechanical sounding jargon followed that I can't even begin to recreate for you)out of the (more mechanical stuff I think was about industrial air conditioning units). That's illegal."
"So he is shady!"
Ezra grinned again. "Well, I wouldn't say that, but I will tell ya this...everybody I've ever dealt with who scraps, steals."
Siobhan got down to business. "Should katherine go out with him or not?"
Ezra gave us a pained expression and shrugged his shoulders. I suspect all hetero men are bound by some kind of honor code that states, Thou shall not cock block. I let Ezra off the hook. "I'm not going out with somebody who steals."
"But, Katherine! You don't know that! You don't have all the facts!" Siobhan was giving me her serious face. She reserves this face for making points in discussions. Her head is tilted and her brow is furrowed and her mouth takes on a different shape.
These people were of no help.
I set off to the Palookaville Library. I went to the referrence librarian. "Do you have High School Yearbooks?"
"Yes, we do. We used to keep them in the stacks, but they were being stolen. What year do you need?"
"1988."
"What school?"
"PalookaNorth."
She disapeared around the corner and returned with the white bound book.
I looked through the rows of names in the Seniors section; Lantz, Lark, Laughfrey, Legros, Lemons, Leonard...no Lee.

existentialism and loneliness

2006-05-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Have you done anything social?" my little rodent-esque guinea pig owning psychologist asked.
"No." I lied.
Actually, I had been to a birthday party (the most social of any social occasion) just yesterday. It was for Amina,daughter of Siobhan and Ezra, who had turned the big 5. Amina's father is one one of about umpteen children. The party was populated by many of these siblings and their spouses and progeny. Siobhan and Ezra's smallish apartment was full of people with all manner of connections to one another. People married to people who were siblings of people who had created other people. It was quite a fascinating web. The most fascinating was the one around Siobhan's father. Now, if you didn't know him, you might think Siobhan's father was a wiseguy. He's the best dressed guy in the room; the most charismatic, the most charming, the one that the tipsy women and small children gravitate toward. He is married to Siobhan's mother, a very pretty blond who was most likely a knockout in her day. He had another daughter (with another woman while he was married to Siobhan's mother). Her name is Monelle. Siobhan's mother stayed with him and had a son, Seamus. It doesn't end here. Ezra, (recap: father of Amina and life-partner of Siobhan,) has a sister, Eve. Siobhan thinks her father may have something going on with Eve. The completely bizarre thing is, if you met Siobhan's dad, you may well understand why Siobhan's mother would stay with him (no joke. seriously). All of these people were in the same smallish apartment. Amazing.
Another amazing thing was how Ezra's umpteen siblings looked alike yet nothing alike. When I walked in, I was introduced to Ezekiel, a red-haired ruddy faced guy. His wife, Jamie was stick thin and very familiar. Then I was introduced to Effram, who looked remarkably like Ezekiel, except for the baby mullet and cop 'stache. Effram spoke like Eyeore (not another sibling; the Winnie the Pooh donkey character). Later, after a couple of vodka and tonics with lime, Siobhan and I called his answering machine in the other room and cracked up upon hearing the greeting, "If you wanna...Leave a message. Beep!"
The next sibling I met was the youngest male, Edward. How Edward got the most common name of his siblings is a mystery. Maybe the poor mother was just freakin' tired. Now, Ezra and Edward could be versions of one another. Similiar build; lankish and thin. Similiar noses; longish and prominent. They also resembled the gay brother, Esau. Esau is very mannerly and pleasant in a teacher sort of way. He's not flamboyant or queeny at all. In any other environment,the only hint of his orientation is in the vaguely neuter-ish feeling he gives off. In that room of alpha males, the gayness was palpable. These three; Ezra, Edward and Esau, resembled the other two, Effram and Ezekiel, not at all. As I said, Ezra, Ed and Esau were lankish and thin with longish noses and brown hair and fairish skin. Eff and Zeke were ruddy redheads with shortish stout builds. Enter Eve.
Eve is an escort(Is it me or is this sounding somewhat Seussical?). This has only recently come to the attention of her family. She tries to downplay her va-va-voomishness in front of them by wearing baggy clothing and putting her hair up. It doesn't quite work. If you saw Eve in the Wal-Mart, you would double-take her. She has a great body; tiny waist, fake boobs (not too big, no big gaping cavernous valley between them, no obnoxious ridges that make them look like two halves of a nerf ball stuck under her skin), and a cute butt in her very expensive looking jeans. She has a sort of manufactured star quality. I think she may have had some work done on her face; botox and some lip injections, nothing major. She resembles her mother only vaguely and her brothers not at all. (Oddest thing about Eve's appearance: she has scary man-hands that look like she has toiled for many lifetimes in some horribly difficult trade. While I suspect at times the escort trade is horribly difficult, I don't think it gives you man-hands.)The youngest of the entire family is Erin, who resembles none of these other people. She has a prominent nose, but of an entirely different shape than the others. Nothing in her facial structure suggests her siblings or mother. Very strange. That only accounts for 8 of the umpteen kids. I would love to see the father and the remaining siblings to see if there are missing links that would bring them all together. Currently, I am harboring a suspicion that Ezra's fundamentally religious mother had affairs with at least 4 different men.
Now, on to the spouses. Ezekiel's wife, Jaime, the rail thin vaguely familiar one, never left his side for more than 2 seconds and when she spoke the 4 words I witnessed her utter, they weren't audible. I think I may have went to high school with her. She has the same haircut(feathered) and was wearing something that could have been from that era; heather grey sweatshirt with tipped collar and sleeves and a logo with sand washed mom jeans. When Ezekiel made fun of Eve's children's names (boys, twins with very effeminate names; Allegra and Dante), she lightly smacked him on the arm and mouthed something that looked like, "Stop it." or "Stop that!"
Effram's wife was very outging and talkative. She also consumed two bottles of wine between 2 and 5. She kept checking in with me. "Here! Sit here!" she would say and pat the seat next to her. She and Effram seemed to communicate via teasing each other. She ended up planted next to Siobhan's father (imagine that!), chatting him up in an overtly flirty manner as red faced Effram sat watching her, grinning like a smitten fool and shaking his head.
I may have mentioned in previous posts that I am somewhat socially phobic. Having a dog has helped me, as everybody and their mama want to talk with me about him. I find the dynamics of any social event both fascinating and terrifying. When I see two people who are familiar with one another interact, I feel like I am seeing something I shouldn't. I should look away, but I'm too fascinated. What makes familiarity happen? What is the glue of these situations? I think it involves a gene or at least a skill set I don't have. I never feel entirely comfortable around any other person and it seems like at once a burden and a blessing.
Later that night, after I left the party, caught a film at the dollar theater in the next town, and while I was walking Henry, an ache seized my torso. It was so abrupt and so fierce that I nearly doubled over under the streetlight while grasping the leash. My knees bent slightly and I pressed my arms to my sides and tried to take deep breaths so I wouldn't burst into tears right there in the street. This happens only rarely. Most of the time I am quite content with my solitude. Occasionally the emptiness, longing, ache, and loss culminate into a psychic donkeypunch (Thanks, Barry) of physical pain. The only other person I knew that felt mental anguish in a physical way was an ex-boyfriend who told me he hurt so badly after his mother died that even his teeth ached.
"We're social beings." said the rodent shrinky dink. I agree. My need for socialization is not constant. It lays dormant until I experience some big beautiful mess like Amina's birthday party, then rears up and pounds me like a wave.

i am...

2006-05-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

Barry didn't invite me to do this, but Ima doin' it anyways!

I AM: a 35 year old single person with a dog and very little else
I WANT: mental stability
I WISH: education was free
I HATE: the way things are
I MISS: something I’ve never had
I FEAR: the further decline of my appearance
I HEAR: no relevant advice
I WONDER: where I will end up
I REGRET: and yet, I don’t
I AM NOT: a lesbian...yet
I DANCE: to britney spears while cleaning my house
I SING: in the car like a doofus
I CRY: every month
I AM NOT ALWAYS: the best person I can be
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: food, drawings
I WRITE: about things that stay in mind
I CONFUSE: existentialism and loneliness
I NEED: some love and a job
I SHOULD: exercise, mind my caloric intake, get up every day at the same time…
I START: too late
I FINISH: too little
I TAG: tag like “graffiti”? I don’t tag anything.

stop

2006-04-23T08:37:00.000-07:00

I want Mariah Carey to stop. Stop with the tiny clothing. She is thirty six years old. The pig tails, the bare midriff, the tiny skirts and itty bitty pink terry cloth shorts. It's ridiculous. Put on some clothing. Get off of whoever the newest rapper is. Stand up like a grown woman. Sing something inspiring. Use correct grammar. Stop acting like you are a new teenaged performer. Respect yourself. Please, for the love of all humanity, cover those bosomy-like shape shifting things on your chest. I will not post a picture. Don't even ask. You all know what she's been wearing lately.

This is what happens when people become famous and ridiculously wealthy. They are surrounded by smacked-asses telling them that everything they do is great. Nobody challenges them anymore. They can't be "reeled back in." Accountability is a good thing. Some examples of other wealthy people in need of a gobsmack; Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and several members of his family, Donald Trump, Naomi Campbell, Dubya, numerous athletes, Britney Spears, Courtney Frickin' Love, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Tara Reid, Charlie Pervert Sheen(kid's clothing? What the hell?), Pamela Anderson, ....forget it, it's endless. Oh, wait! One more! That Jocelyn Wildenstein lady who had plastic surgery to make herself look like a leopard.

Tell me who you think the most ridiculous person in need of a reality gobsmack is.

bully; a four part post

2006-04-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

Brutally Rebuffed in the Kmart

We were in the shoe aisle. She had pretty brown hair and her outfit matched. My haircut was homemade, so my bangs were thick and crooked. My outfits never matched. Her hair was neatly braided and finished at each end with a hair accessory. My hair hung slack and stringy. When I saw her, I took a few steps away from my mother’s cart and said, “Hi.”
“Don’t say Hi to me.” She said.
Her mother heard. Her mother gave me a once over, lingering for a moment on my dirty feet in grocery store flip-flops (This was the seventies. Flip-flops were not in vogue).
“Come over here.” She said and took her little girl by the hand as if to protect her from me.
It was the first time I felt shock, humiliation and indignation. It was the first time I felt I was not good enough. I was five. I didn’t cry or react outwardly. I went back to our cart.
“What did that little girl say to you?” my sister asked.
I told her.
“Mom, did you hear that?”
My sister told her. My mother looked hurt then angry.
“Well, some people think they’re better’n others. I wonder what they’d think if I went by and knocked ‘em in the head? Clunk! Clunk!”
Mom always said something funny to try to make us feel better. I didn’t feel better, but I didn’t let it show.
“You don’t want to talk to people like that anyway!” my sister chimed in.
But I did.

Boogies

On the day before Easter, my mother took us all to the Kmart. Everybody got a new outfit complete with shoes. My dress was long and cream colored with short puffy sleeves. Pink flowers were embroidered at the neck. It had my most favorite thing of all; a sash. At the age of six, I thought sashes represented the height of elegance. That night, my mother rolled my hair up in my pink squishy rollers. I had to sleep on them all night. The next morning, I woke to find my Easter basket by my bed. We got dressed for church. I couldn’t wait for everybody to see my new dress and shiny shoes. Our Sunday school class was very crowded. We sat on the floor and sang. I felt something touching me. I looked back. A little black girl was behind me. I looked down at her hand. She was touching my sash with one finger. On the end of her finger was a boogie! I looked at my sash. There were more boogies squashed onto my pretty sash! I hit her hand. She didn’t react, just stopped touching me. It was time to line up. The little black girl broke from her place in line and shoved me. I grabbed her shoulders and hurled her to the ground. I was shocked at myself. I didn’t know I could do such a thing. The little girl lay on the ground and cried. The other children told the Sunday school teacher. She asked why. I was too embarrassed to say “boogies” to a strange adult, so I didn’t respond.
“Kass, the teacher said there was trouble in Sun-dee school. What happened?” my mother asked me while we drove home.
I told her about the boogies. I made sure to tell her it was a little black girl, ‘cuz my mom and dad always said things about black people that were not very nice. I knew if she knew it was a black girl, I wouldn’t get in that much trouble.
“She was a-doin’ whaaat?” my mother looked horrified, shocked and amused all at the same time.
I repeated myself.
“Well, she shouldn’ta been a-doin’ that! That is deesgusting! But you can’t be shovin’ people ‘round. ‘Specially on Sun-dee! Easter Sun-dee! At Sun-dee school!” she paused for a moment. “…even if they are black.”

Social Leprosy

“Wyonchoo ever invite Lisa to go do thangs with you and yer friends?” asked Lisa’s mother.
I would sooner die. Lisa wouldn’t fit in with my new friends at all. My new friends were the most popular girls in school. They were cheerleaders and class officers. They were smart and intended to go to college. They had houses in Long Beach with swimming pools and hot tubs. Their families owned businesses. Lisa was a high school drop out. She wore “stoner” clothes and still had flat feathered hair. She wasn’t pretty. No cool boys liked her. She was pigeon-toed and stoop-shouldered. She smoked cigarettes and marijuana. She would often go for days without showering, lying around in her pajamas. How could I explain this to her mother, a hard drinking, hard living woman from Arkansas who dated married men and fought in bars? I knew Lisa because our mothers worked together and we were neighbors. When I first moved back to Indiana, my mother offered me up as Lisa’s friend without consulting me first. I wouldn’t have picked Lisa for a friend. We had been thrown together. As I ascended the social ladder of Jr. High and High School, Lisa was left on the bottom rung.
“My friends usually invite me to do things. I wouldn’t feel right inviting somebody else along. Most of the stuff we do is school stuff anyway.” I lied.
Mary Jean was no fool. “How’s goin’ a da beach in summer ‘bout school?” She narrowed her eyes at me. I knew she wouldn’t be talking to me this way if my mother were around.
Mary Jean had no idea how hard it was to break into the ranks of the popular kids when you came from our neighborhood. There was no way I could try to get clearance for Lisa. It would jeopardize everything. I would be cast out. I had been a nobody. Loyalty be damned; I wasn’t going back.

Submersed

“You! Come up here, please.” I was speaking to a tall seventh-grade girl who had just thrown a pencil across the room at a small boy. When he saw me observe this, he flushed bright red, averted his eyes and tried to shrink down behind his desk. She looked at me defiantly as if to say, “What? What are you gonna do, sub?” I had spoken to her twice already. As she came into the classroom one half of a millisecond before the bell, she pushed the small boy’s head as she walked by and uttered, “Fag-o-saurus.”
“Excuse me?” I said to her. She paused on the way to her seat.
“Nothing.” She said.
“Yeah…that’s what I thought.” I said and gave her my stern teacher look. The class instantly grew quiet and still. Aha! I had found the Alpha female. I instinctively know my own kind.
The small boy blushed and tried to disappear into the books on his desk. I introduced myself to the class and explained my expectations for behavior as I always did.
“I expect you to be quiet and respectful of one another. I expect you to stay seated. You may use the pencil sharpener at your leisure. I have been instructed not to give bathroom passes, but I will ignore this instruction. Do not mistake this for weakness. If you abuse your restroom privilege you will be reported to the office. I expect you to work on your assignment/pay attention to the film/participate in the activity, etc. If you deviate from these expectations, you will be sent to the office. This is not an idle threat. Try Me.”
We set about following the lesson plan’s instructions. The children were busy with the assignment. I began filling out the class behavior sheet provided by the teacher. The stillness of the room was shattered by a loud snorting giggle; the cry of the Alpha female.
I stared at her until she composed herself. She stared back.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked. She smirked at me.
“Do you think you could control yourself while your classmates complete their assignment?”
“Yes.” She said in a manner that satisfied my question but was just snarky enough in its tone to retain respect with her peers.
“We would be very grateful.” I smiled back. Order was restored, she’d had her moment of attention, and I turned back to the form. I glanced up just as the pencil left her grasp. We watched its trajectory and its connection to the small boy’s head.
I handed her the written referral and she exited the room. Several minutes passed. The phone in the room rang. “Hello?”
“Yes, this is Jane from the office. Did you just send a student down here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, are you aware that if a student is sent to the office by a sub they automatically receive two days in detention during which time they are not allowed to make up any tests or assignments?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the student you sent, Susie Dadsacop…she’s a good student…she is well-liked…she’s on the honor roll…she’s never been sent to the office before...”

extra credit

2006-04-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

In one of my Elementary Education classes, we are given extra points for volunteering for any event or cause related to teaching. I participated in a Curious George themed reading event held at the Palookaville Public Library. Upon arrival, I found the other participants preparing the room. There were eight tables. Each table had a bunch of primary colored balloons anchored by bananas. I was given a colorful nametag necklace and put to work taping construction paper signs with the name of each activity to the tables. The activities were as follows;
· Make a Curious George Puppet
· Make a Curious George Mask
· Reading Picnic
· Face Painting
· Dream Drawing
· Make a Boat
· Color A Curious George Scene
· Make a Book

As I started to punch holes into nametags for the guests, one of the facilitators of the event asked, “Katherine, are you artistic?”
“Yes!” I replied enthusiastically.
“Then you get to be the face painter!” She said this with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I had face painted before. Ten years ago, Palookaville Elementary hosted a “Fun Fair” with many activities. I painted faces for several hours. The most popular request was the Chicago Bulls logo. By the end of the day, I could paint that stylized bull head blindfolded and comatose. The most difficult request was a tiny girl who simply said, “May-shun.”
I looked at her mother for help with the translation.
“A DAL-MAY-SHUN.” Her mother clarified, speaking very loudly. I looked at her pleadingly. She didn’t take the hint. “You know the dog…with the spots.”
“Yes, I know what a Dalmatian is…I will do my best, but that’s a hard one!” I said with a big smile. Hint. Hint. The mother stood firm. I painted the most pitiful looking white blotch with black spots you have ever seen on the tiny cheek. The mother inspected it.
“Well, it sorta looks like a dog.” She said and led the girl away by the hand.
Um…You’re Welcome.
I took my place at the table and started to open up the supplies. Somebody brought me a Curious George template and my first victim; a seventh grader who was there helping her mother with the event. I painstakingly followed the template. It came out great. I was pleased. My next practice face came in the form of one of my classmates’ children. My classmate is a formidable woman whose mouth is always hanging slightly open, exposing her tongue and top teeth. She recently stated to the class that she thought creationism should be taught in public schools because, "We're Christians!"
I went on a rant about seperation of church and state that halted the entire discussion and left the room so quiet we could hear our breath rustling through our nose hairs.
“HI!!!” I greeted her a little too enthusiastically, still buzzing from my first face art triumph.
She stared straight ahead and did not answer. She was a large girl. Bigger than me. Her head was the size of my ex-boyfriend's, who is a former Division 1 lineman. Her eyes were kind of dull. Like her mother, her jaw hung slack, exposing her tongue and bottom teeth.
“Do you want a George?” I finally asked.
She continued to stare straight ahead and nodded almost imperceptibly. I followed the template again with great results. She rose silently from her chair and floated away. At no time did she smile or utter a word. This shouldn't surprise me. Many kids don't know simple social skills, and are not confident enough to employ them.
Some of the other volunteers noticed my Georges and complimented me. Two tiny sisters came over. I asked the bigger sister’s name.
“Ka-Lee-Ya” she said and presented her itty bitty cheek. This was more difficult, but I managed to pull it off. Then it was her little sister’s turn. I asked her name.
“Jush-ush.” She said.
“Justice?” I asked, remembering the name of a character portrayed by Janet Jackson in a popular movie of the 90’s. She nodded her tiny head. Ah, Palookaville. During my substitute teacher days, I encountered names such as Luxury Shatoya, Paradise, Juwanna, many variations of Jasmine, and countless versions of Jamal. I struggled to scale the size of the George face down to fit her miniscule cheek.
“Thank You.” said Kaleah.
“Shang Goo.” said Jush-ush.
Most of the children wanted George heads as well. I no longer had to refer to the template. I was keeping the line moving fairly well. A kid would sit. I would say, “Do you want a George?” They would nod complacently. The Pavlovian-behaviorist model of face painting; ask a loaded question, get the expected response. Cake!
“What do you want, Buddy?” said Cute Dad.
“A Zebra!” announced Buddy. Ah…a kink in the plan. I knew I had seen zebras somewhere in a Curious George book. I picked up a copy of The Complete Adventures of Curious George and thumbed through the pages. Oh Yes! The alphabet story! The letters were drawn to look like animals. I copied the Z-zebra as closely as possible. Cute Dad was pleased. My line had grown. Long. A younger child of the same classmate sat. “I want a butterfly.” She was a smaller version of the large child. This one was more aggressive.
I started on a monarch. I made a lovely pattern of orange markings.
“Why are you using black?” she asked.
“Why are you using orange?”
“Why are you doing that?” “Why aren’t you making it blue?”
“Why are you using yellow?”
Oops. I should ask more questions. I should let the children pick their colors. I was dictating what their objects should look like. They should be expressing themselves to me. They would learn more by trying to describe what they envisioned. I finished her butterfly. “Now I want a zebra on my hand.” She said.
I looked at the line of patient kids and parents. This would require a bit of diplomacy.
“Will you be a good sport and let somebody who hasn’t had a turn go? You have a painting and some people haven’t had a chance to get one.” This was a gamble. How would she react? What if she told her slack-jawed fundamentalist mother I had been mean to her?
She rose from the chair and left. Did she roll her little eyes at me? I think she might have. Now that the kids had seen some of the non-conformist non-George designs, they started to get creative with the requests.
“…a star that has yellow on the outside and green on the inside.” from one of my professor's children, Harry, age 5, who recently completed construction paper flags of all of the Olympic participants and presented them to the class with a factoid for each nation. Five. Five years old.
“…a goldfish and then, underneath the goldfish, in writing, I want it to say, ‘Goldy’” from the little girl with 3 siblings who were all home-schooled and quite precocious. It was a tribute to her deceased goldfish that was just ceremoniously flushed that very morning.
“A princess crown.” said a girl of about 11 who rode the Municipal Coach alone to get to the event. She proved to be my best customer of the day, returning 3 more times for different requests; a George, a flower, the crown and her initials.
“I would like a dinosaur with big teeth and blood coming out of his mouth like he just killed something!” from one of the home-schooled siblings, a brother.
At one point, I looked up to find two tiny rock stars staring at me. One wore a short sleeved tee-shirt over a long sleeved tee shirt, baggy jeans and a knit “skully” hat adorned with a hipster logo pulled down to his eyebrows. The other one wore a black hoodie with a flame design down both sleeves, and hair gel in his short spiky coif. I looked around to see if these were indeed the progeny of Tommy Lee or Jesse James.
“What’ll it be?” I asked the first one. He rolled up his sleeve and produced a bare forearm. “A snake…curled up…with fangs.”
“Alrighty!” I went to work.
“How’s that?” I asked. He gave a curt head nod. I now knew what it felt like to work in a tattoo shop. It was “Skully’s” turn.
“I want ‘NO FEAR’ in red and black. On my neck.”

My faith was restored with the remaining children of my professor.
“Pink. Pink George.” said Madeleine of the enormous eyes.
“If there’s time,” allowed the gracious Betsy, “I would like a rose in this color,” indicating a perfect shade of blue based red, “with a stem in this color.” pointing to an as-yet unused shade of green that was much more appropriate than the tealish green I had been using for foliage.
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
I was still painting away as the other tables were being cleared. Finally, another adult came to the rescue.
“Well, that’s it! You’re the last customer!” She announced.
I would have stayed the rest of the day. I gratefully went home and took a nap.

chil-ren

2006-04-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

It is springtime in the rest of the world, but here in the Midwestern-I state where I dwell, it is not the same kind of springtime. Today we had a high of 48 degrees accompanied by a chilly breeze off of our Great Lake. Many people still wear their winter parkas. It is not uncommon to see snow storms well into April. As a child, I remember wearing my winter coat and snowboots with my Easter dress, and hunting for eggs in snow. Siobhan's little daughter Amina, 4, needed some clarification on this today.
"Is it winter?" she asked from the backseat.
"No!" Siobhan and I said in unison.
"Then what is it?" she asked.
"Spring!" Siobhan and I said in unison.
"Then why is it still cold?"
I took this one while Siobhan concentrated on the road.
"Well, it's not as cold as winter, but it's not as hot in summer, and we live in the Midwest, so this is our spring."
"But Grampy says that if it is still a little cold in the air, then it isn't spring!"
"Your Grampy is wrong. Tell him I said that. In fact, I will call him up myself right this very minute! Where is your cell phone?"
Amina laughed at me and said, "You aren't gonna call my Grampy cuz my cell phone is in my Care Bear backpack and I left it at home!"
Of course Amina does not have a cell phone. She is just that good at playing along with me.
One indication of how exceptional Amina is happens to be her ability to discern and understand sarcasm. I can tell her ridiculous things like, "I am going to beat the holy hell out of you as soon as your mother looks away." and she will totally crack up because she knows I am just talking smack. Sometimes she joins in on the smack-talk, "Well, I am gonna wait til we get home and then I'm gonna beat you up cuz I know how!" She also likes to do all the same stuff I like to do; color, string beads and make up ridiculous stories.
"OK, there's a chicken, a police man, a fox, a dog, and a bunny rabbit."she'll say, "Now, you go."
"Alrighty...Let's see...Once upon a time there was a bunny rabbit named Peaches and she was a very good neighbor. One day Peaches looked outside and saw a chicken chasing a fox chasing a police man chasing a dog. She called her friend the hippopotamus and asked her what was going on...." and the story gets more ridiculous from there with Amina interjecting different animals and possible scenarios and her parents sitting in uncomfortable silence in the front seat, unsure of what to make of a grown person engaging their child in this way for very long periods of time.
Amina is so smart and good humored and interesting that I am startled when she acts like a normal four year old. She made it through an entire day of driving, lunching, shopping for groceries and browsing a store full of imported furnishings, antiques and trinkets that begged to be touched and broken(wherein she scooted her little butt up onto an antique bench and declared, "This couch is hard as hell!" She even cusses correctly. Earlier, she was fidgeting with something in the car and said,"Shit! I can't get this to work!"). When we returned home, she walked with us for at least two miles. Mid-point into the walk, she broke down. I was alarmed. I don't have any children. I am not often around children. These things surprise me.
Now, Amina has a flair for drama. After being refused her way, she will sulk and pout. If she sees you are paying attention to her, she will change her facial expression to one of Dickensian despair and slow her feet to a pathetic shuffle. She began with a wind-up whining sound. It started with, "But, Mama I wann....and then it trilled up into something that sounded like, "weeee-eeeeeeeeeedeeeeeeeeeeeekeeeeeeeeeeeepeeeeeeeeeeehunhh!" Siobahn interpretted this primal screaming to mean, "I don't want to leave yet! I want to go to the park!" Siobhan calmly told her that it was time to go. It was getting late and cold and the park was not an option today. Amina refused to walk with us. Siobhan went to take her hand, and Amina ran away. Not unlike Henry does when he drags one of my bras from the laundry and I chase him around the apartment yelling, "No! That's a bad puppy! Very Bad! That's a NO-NO!"
"'Mina, if I have to chase you, you will be very sorry." Siobhan stated. Siobhan moved in her direction. Amina ran.
"I am going to count to five...one...two...three.."
Amina shuffled over still making the "weeeeeeepeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedeeee" squealy-screechy noises. Siobhan reach for her hand and Amina went limp. Her knees folded up and she dropped to the ground. Siobhan reach down and picked her up. Amina started screaming, "POPPA! POPPA! POPPA! I WANT TO TALK TO POPPA!"
Henry did not know what to make of this and at first thought Siobhan was hurting Amina and barked at her. Then he thought maybe this was some new kind of play and wanted in on the fun.He ran over and jumped up on Siobhan. I pulled his leash and he reluctantly came over by me. Amina continued to scream. I looked around to make sure nobody thought I may be involved in what looked like an abduction. Henry's ears were folded against his head and he started to walk faster. Siobhan passed us with Amina struggling and screaming in her arms. A drunken lady with no teeth and a snot trail from her nose to her upper lip yelled to them, "That's just how my son cries! Don't cry, baby! You're supposed to have fun! Give yer momma a big kiss and stop that cryin'!" Ah, Palookaville.
Siobhan was civil but not encouraging and trudged on with Amina bellowing to the top of her lungs.
I don't have children. It's a deliberate choice. I have carefully side-stepped them for a myriad of reasons. I don't want to pass on certain genetics. I don't have the appropriate resources. I don' t want to bring another person into the world who will have to plod along, struggling through a mediocre existence. I think it takes so much to give them an advantage. I love the ones that are here. I love the ones that are on their way here. I love all of them. Give me a kid, any kid and I am in love with it in two minutes.I applaud those of you who have had them. I believe you are a hopeful, faithful and trusting people. You find good in the world and are secure in sending a little person out into it. Your hope ensures that we will go on. So much of what goodness is preserved in this life it is done by people who have made that leap of faith and brought progeny into it. But, I can't. I will never join your ranks. I am afraid.

I am afraid I will beat the holy shit out of them.

I am being funny, but there is some seriousness in this statement. I am afraid I will just lose my mind and beat them senseless and change who they are forever and set them on a course of despair. I would never put my hand on somebody else's child. I don't hit Henry. But I am afraid I will hit my children.

The remainder of the walk consisted of me and Henry walking far ahead of Siobhan and Amina. Mostly because I wanted to ask Amina questions while she freaked out and I knew it was so highly inappropriate.
"So, tell me, Amina...Why are you flippin' out?"
"Weeeeeeeeeeeheeeeee-keeeeeeeeeeeeeepeeeeeeeeeeehunhh!"
"Do you think this is effective?"
"POPPA POPPA POPPAPOPPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAggghhhh"
"Do you really think your mother will take you to the park if you act this way?"
"IIIIIIWWAAAAANNNTMMMYYYYPPOPPPAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
"How do you think we could avoid these outbursts in the future?"
"AGH! AGH! AGH! WEEEEEEEEEEEKUUUUUUUUUUUUGHAAAAGH!"

As soon as Amina calmed down, Henry layed down on the sidewalk and refused to budge until we were all in proximity again. Henry's a herder. On a walk, he frequently checks to make sure everybody is present and accounted for. If you lag behind, he will sit down and graciously wait for you to catch up. He actually has a look on his face like, "Are you comin'?" Funny, he was fine with walking far ahead while Amina was screaming.

That's my boy!

georgia on your mind

2006-04-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

I think it's funny how I get so few comments on my CBS-obsession entries. Or maybe you are all just afraid of the mention of my Hoo-Ha.
Speaking of hoo-has, there's been a rise in labial plastic surgery. I thought this was ridiculous until I checked out a plastic surgeon's blog complete with photos of before and after hoo-ha pics(There's a link on "Awful Plastic Surgery" I don't know how to put a link on my blog. Leave me alone. I was born in the seventies.). If I had something resembling a piece of wilted flesh lettuce hanging from my nether regions, I would lop that shit off, as well. Good day!

blink

2006-03-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

My building is next to a large house. The owner of the house is one Mr. Snarkey. He is so old, he can no longer drive. He was one of the first people in Palookaville to own a hybrid car. Within a month, it was dented. Within three months, duct tape was holding the side of the bumper together. Mr. Snarkey's house has an upstairs apartment which is rented by Lois. She is the owner of a bug eyed Pomerian/Chihuahua mix. "ZsaZsa" wears a cat collar with bells and a tiara. Lois refuses to put her on a leash, even though ZsaZsa gets away from her a couple of times a week. Daily, I can hear Lois yelling, "ZsaZsa! Come here! ZsaZsa! No! ZsaZsa come back here! Right now!"
This morning I took Henry out and we were met by Zsa Zsa and Lois. Lois had a men's clip-on tie in her hand. She held it out to me. "Here!" she thrust it at me. "Somebody lost this!" I stepped back and said, "I don't want it!"
"But somebody lost it!" she looked at me like I was crazy.
"I didn't lose it!" I stepped back from her again. Henry stopped smelling ZsaZsa's ass and looked at the tie. Then at me. Then at Lois. Then at the tie. Then he smelled ZsaZsa's ass again.
"Well, it had to be somebody in your building!" she was dead serious.
"Why would it have to be somebody in my building? There are thousands of people residing in Palookaville. There are hundreds of residents of Rogers Grove. How did you come to that conclusion?"
I was not being very nice to her. I don't like her very much. When Henry was only 3 months old, she accused him of trying to hump ZsaZsa. Henry has never humped anything. He was just jumping around, trying to get ZsaZsa to play with him. There was no humping. THERE WAS NO HUMPING! Henry is not an acquaintance-humper!
Then, she told me the owners of the house next to hers had accused me of allowing Henry to poo in their yard. Henry had never pooed in their yard. I saw the lady out one day and went over to introduce myself. I let her know that Lois had told me about the poo and it wasn't Henry. The woman laughed and said, "That crazy old bat! I told her to not allow ZsaZsa to use our yard!"
Lois also unnerves me because she doesn't greet. Upon sight, she asks a question. For example, She will appear around a corner of our building with ZsaZsa jingling in tow, and instead of saying, "Good Morning, How are you?" She will just bust out with, "Do you work?"
Who does that?
Lois kind of sputtered and stammered and really couldn't come up with a logical reason why it had to belong to a resident of our building. "Well, I'll just put it here." She placed it near the entry keypads outside the door of the building. She scurried away with ZsaZsa at her heels.

Henry and I went out about an hour ago. Our neighbor William was coming in. "Can you believe that?" He was beaming. "I lost my tie yesterday, and here it is waiting by the door for me! How "bout that?"
I didn't respond.

manipulate

2006-03-23T15:29:00.000-08:00

"Don't." I whispered. I pushed his hand away from the drawstring of my pink Champion sweatpants.
"Why?" his forehead was pressed against the top of my head. His eyes were so watery blue. I had to look away or I would have let him do anything.
"Just don't." I tried to entwine my fingers with his, but he pulled his hand away and went for the drawstring again.
I grabbed his hand. "Don't."
"Is it your period?" He had propped himself up on his elbow.
"NO! just... don't."

I thought I was supposed to put up some kind of resistance. I also knew that last year in eighth grade, girls who let guys go down their pants were called sluts and had secret names like Carrie Tuna Fish Bradhomme. There was a rumor Tuna Fish was bowlegged because she let so many boys "finger" her. The sound of "finger" as a verb held nasty dirty filthy cheap dismissive connotations. I also thought my vagina was gross and perpetually dirty and smelly no matter how much I washed in the shower. It was always betraying me by oozing blood and clear stuff. What if I had some weird smell? What if he never spoke to me again and told all the seniors and then I would have no friends like the C list girls at school.
There was Natalie Wagner, who was rumored to have slept with not only Tony Pantaglione but Key Largo Brown and some more of the foosball guys. There was Tammy Whitehead who was rumored to have peed on Bob Fortiss while he fucked her. There was Virginia Biggerstaff who was rumored to have allowed the senior class valedictorian, Mitch Biggs to fuck her in the library audio visual equipment room. The only girls who were given stigma-clearance were those in long term relationships of a year or more.
Charliebrownshoes and I were not in a relationship. We had never even been on an official date. We went bowling once in a group. We ended up at some of the same house parties. That was it. I asked him about all of this on the phone a week prior to the drawstring struggle.
"What are we doing?" I posed out of the blue.
"Whatta ya mean?" He asked back. The Castle Greyskull theme was playing in the background.
"I mean, like...you call me every day, you come over, we make out for a thousand hours, so...like, what is this? What are we doing?" I was pretty impressed with myself. I had never been so direct with him about anything.
"We're 'talking'." He enunciated 'talking' as if I were a toddler. I had heard guys say this phrase before. It was the lowest rung on the commitment ladder. There was talking, dating, going out and the big one; serious. As in, "George and Julie? Yeah, they're (insert verb from aforementioned list here). "
My heart sank. I was hoping for at least dating. No dice. I retaliated, "We certainly aren't dating because that would require. Going. On. A. Date."
He expelled an irritated sigh. "That costs money!"
I rolled my eyes. "Uh, yeah..."
"Are you gonna pay?" He demanded.
Silence from my end.
"HA! That's what I thought! I have college to save for!" I thought he was lying or making excuses to avoid taking me out. Looking back, I think there may have been some truth to it. He didn't wear name brand clothes, except for Levi's. He didn't have very many clothes. Sometimes he repeated shirts in the same week. He didn't go out every weekend, like the other guys. Many times he would come to my house after working all day at one of the Poppalopagus's restaurants. He didn't play football his senior year. When I asked him why he said so he could work for college.
"How many girls are you 'talking' to?"

"Not many."

"How many?"

"I don't know...a few."

"A FEW? You mean, you have other girls that you go to their house and you make out with them and then you come to my house and make out with me? That is so gross! I have a right to know who they are in case I don't want to get their germs!"

He was laughing on the other end.

"It's not funny! I'm serious!"

"What do you want?" He sounded serious.

"I don't know...to be like normal people."

"What's normal?" He still sounded sort of serious. I think he actually cared somewhat about what I was saying.

"Well, you could speak to me in public."

"WHAT!?! YOU don't speak to ME in public! Every day you walk by me in the morning and you never say Hi. Those guys bust me on it every day! Steve asks me every day,'Aren't you talkin' to that girl?' and then they laugh at me!"

CBS hung out in the same corner every day where the cool senior guys congregated before school. The route to my friends' lockers took me directly in front of this spot. I usually passed by and didn't even glance in their direction. On a few occasions, he called out to me. I would look over and wave but keep walking. I would hear the other guys laugh and I thought they were laughing at me. I would actually flush and look stricken to the point where my friends would ask me what was wrong.

"I wave at you if you say something to me."

"You could come over and speak to me!"

"I'm not going over there!"

"Why? What's the big deal?"

"Nuh-uh! No way! I am not approaching you. You are supposed to approach me!" I was serious.

"Says who?"
I didn't know until many years later that CBS's mother held an important state job, managed a large staff and brought home the bigger income in his household. I thought he was either retarded or was avoiding treating me appropriately by feigning ignorance. I realize now he was probably not that sophisticated. I assumed that everybody adhered to unspoken policies that I had compiled through observation and assumption and had no basis in reality.

"Says I don't know who...just that's how it's supposed to be! You're the guy and you're older!"

"What's that got to do with anything? Haven't you heard of women's lib? You need to get with it! I see girls approach guys all the time. Debbie comes over and talks to Steve every morning!"

"Debbie and Steve are practically married, plus she is a senior."

"They are not! They're just going out! What does her grade have to do with it?"

All this logic was very clear to me. I had very definite systems and classifications in my head. I thought it was common knowledge.
"Plus, you never take me anywhere."

He couldn't reply. I had him there.
The next day in school he approached me in the hallway and asked where my next class was. He took my books from me and walked me to my next class. I could have died of embarassment. Not only because so many people looked at us, but because he chose on this day of all days to wear bright gold sweatpants. He looked like a complete doofus. I talked about it with my best friend, Vanessa.
"Oh, my God. He looks like Big Bird. He could be so cute if he just had some style!" At the mention of Big Bird, Vanessa covered her face. She thought she looked ugly when she laughed and her face crinkled up. The truth was Vanessa was beautiful. She had black hair and green eyes and huge boobs. The two most popular guys in the senior class called her every night. When she was composed, she asked, "What's up with those 'brogans'?" and we busted out laughing again because I immediately knew what she meant. Ocassionally, CBS would break out a pair of suede lace-ups that looked like a cross between bucks and wingtips. They didn't make sense with his outfits. For example, he would pair a white oxford shirt and Levi's with the brogans one week and repeat the same outfit the next week with his tennis shoes. We tried to come up with a pattern to his brogan appearances, but there were none. And there was the issue with the hair. Atop his exceptional facial features, he insisted on keeping a dated "feathered" style with bangs. All of the cool senior guys had short styles and used mousse or gel. We ripped on his hair for a while before I finally said, "And this is the guy I want to be my boyfriend....and he WON"T!" We collapsed with laughter again.

We struggled a bit more for the drawstring. I finally grabbed it in my fist and squeezed so tight he couldn't pry my fingers away.
"Then I'm leaving!" he raised his voice. I was shocked. That was so unfair...just because I didn't want him to touch my...
"Then LEAVE!" I screamed at him and then I started crying. "You are so mean! I hate you!"

I regretted it as soon as I said it. That week he had approached me in the hall, carried my books to my class, took me to help him pick out his senior class ring, called me every night, and paid extra attention to me at Kelly's house party. He told me, "You look nice." in front of my friends and a few of his, and never strayed more than a few feet away from me. I had gained status with my friends. Tracey said, "Wow, you and CBS seem to be getting serious."

He pulled me to him and put his mouth by my ear. "Don't say that." he whispered. He kissed my hair and my forehead and my eyelids and he took my face in both of his hands and kissed me very softly. "I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry." He whispered. "Say we're okay. Look at me. Say we're okay." I had stopped crying and I nodded. I kissed him again and this time, when he went for the drawstring, I didn't stop him.

fyi

2006-03-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

The owners of the building where I reside have acted swiftly in evicting the tenants upstairs. Rob, the approachable owner, informed me today that they should be packing. I asked him, "How long does it take to put a crack pipe into a filthy pillowcase?"

fences make good neighbors

2006-03-11T00:43:00.000-08:00

"Give me my coat! I am not staying here!" She was screaming, pleading.
There were loud stomping footsteps. My ceiling fan shook, the chain pulls clinky-clinky-clinking against the glass light fixture. Scraaaape, crash, stomp, stomp.
"Just give me my coat so I can leave!" Shuffle shuffle stomp stomp crash thud.
"Just give it to me! I don't want to stay here!" She was crying. Not so tough now, huh Jersey City?
The clock says 10:23. On a Sunday night. Dwayne worked at a restaurant. They were closed on Mondays. Sunday night was his Saturday night. Party as a verb, Dwayne!

Trying to establish a sleep pattern is difficult when one has a history of insomnia and seasonal phases of depression and mania. My brain chemistry is difficult enough to negotiate. I don't need Impromptu Hillbilly Theatre to help me stay awake. There is something about this kind of intrusion that enrages me. It must have something to do with how my parents fought.
Have you ever seen Mary J. Blige perform? Have you ever seen the film 'Boogie Nights'? The scene where Mark Wahlberg is fighting with his mother and he's crying and screaming and spit is coming out of his mouth? How about the scene where Heather Graham is stomping the dog shit out of the guy at the end? You know how they just lost their fucking minds in the midst of those scenes? You know how Mary J. starts jumping up and down and tugging at her clothes and making those anguished faces and just singing/screaming out from her depths, from her fucking toenails? She's lost her mind. That's how my parents fought.
I remember the last fight I witnessed. It was September 1981. My mother had become consumed with the DIY ceramics wave of the late seventies. Our kitchen was yellow and green and decorated with frogs. We had every kind of ceramic frog accessory imaginable; canisters, napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers, cream and sugar dispensers, a clock, a bud vase, a frog to hold our sponge by the sink, a spoonrest, just everything ceramic and frogs. The fight had probably started in the living room. It ended in the garden. Every ceramic frog accessory was smashed in the floor of the kitchen. Every last one of them. She had even walked around our kitchen table and stood on tip toes to get the clock. It looked like a ceramic shop had been blown up. The grayish-whitish dust covered the counters and hung in the sunlight and bits and pieces of benevolent frog faces were all over the floor, mostly lining the counters with a path to the sliding glass door that led out back to our garden where Dad and I planted cucumbers, tomatoes and hot peppers.
My mother stood in the garden with her arms raised, struggling to free them from the grip of my father who was covered in scratches from her long nails. She was screaming in his face, "I hope you have other women here! I hope you bring them in to MY house! AND I HOPE YOU EAT THEIR PUSSIES! I HOPE YOU EAT THEIR PUSSIES ON MY NEW COUCH THAT I WORKED AND PAID FOR, YOU SORRY SON OF A BITCH!"
I remember looking over to the neighbor's yard. The old busy body lady was next door. She was standing in her back yard, watching my parents struggle in the garden. She was not peeking from behind the shed or from her screened in little gazebo dwelling. She was standing in the middle of her yard, hands on hips, blatantly staring at the scene, like a NASCAR spectator.
My father finally got my mother into a hold that looked like a very tight uncomfortable hug and carried/dragged her back through the house, to the front door, where he shoved her out and slammed the door. Some of the nail marks on his bare torso were bleeding. Some of them were imbedded with my mother's broken nail tips. I then had to get into a car with this screaming violent mess of a woman. I regarded it all with a numbed detached feeling. That must be a child's survival mechanism.
Often during my years of psychotherapy, in the hospital or out, I have been asked about my mood. "How is your mood?" And I honestly have no idea. I don't really know what I am feeling in the present moment. It takes months to finally articulate what I think I may have been feeling during a certain point in my life, and then it's just speculation; based on what one should feel during a certain event. I am sure that's a factor in my many diagnoses, and why I seem to make little progress in managing my illness.

"GET OFF OF ME! I DON"T LIKE YOU! GET OFF OF ME!" Jersey City was bawling now. This was seriously fucked up. If they thought I was going to listen to this wacked shit for another minute...I dialed the Palookaville Police. The police showed up as the couple had decided to leave. Dwayne stopped on his way down the stairs and knocked on my door. I thought he was the police so I opened it without asking, "Who is it?" The doors in my building are antique and have no peepholes. Dwayne weaved and bobbed in my doorway. "I am sorry she's so problem...problematic. I am so sorry."
I looked at him incredulously.
"Dude!" was all I could manage before he stumbled down the stairs. Sorry she's so problematic? You're drunk, holding her against her will, trying to rape her and she's the problem? Interesting.
I followed Dwayne down the stairs to see if the police had questions. When a short round little black officer saw him, he exclaimed, "Dwayne Lemmings! You've been missing for a little while now. Where ya been hidin'?"
"I been livin' in New York."
"Well, you know I'm gonna have to run ya, right?" The little butterscotch-hued officer asked. Butterscotch Head talked into his radio. Some squawking noises came back in reply. Dwayne had prior warrants. He was arrested. I went upstairs and crawled into bed. 11:42.
12:13. "You're a dead bitch!" I heard Jersey City say as she descended the stairs. Outside I heard her yell, "I'm gonna kill that bitch on the second floah! Her ass is mine!"
I awoke every half hour or so to the Jersey City tranny-thing yelling threats outside my door. I was getting more and more angry every time.
01:48. Knock at my door. That's it. I flew out of bed and opened it. "Do not knock on my door. Stay the fuck away from my door." It's dust colored hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. It looked 60, at least.
"I want to know why you called the police." It said. "I think you called the police cuz you won't fight me." It set it's Budweiser glass bottle down by the stairs. Noted. Stupid.
"You are ridiculous." It was ridiculous. This mannish thing wearing little girl jeans. What kind of person would say such a thing? What kind of person would live in this way? "Get the fuck away from my door." I went to close the door and the tranny lodged her foot in the jam.
Everything went from real time to some kind of fast motion. I came at her. Her eyes widened in surprise. I connected with her face and upper torso several times. She grabbed a hunk of my hair. I kept punching her. She didn't let go of my hair. I grabbed her face with my left hand, her neck with my right. My left ring finger was in her eyeball. She weighed nothing. As she careened down the stairs, my hair ripped out of my head. It sounded like velcro. The whole time I yelled, "Get out of my apartment! Get out of my apartment!" Henry howled and barked and pushed at his crate until it was crooked.
She landed with her ass on the floor of the landing and her legs going up the stairs. She was saying something I couldn't hear from the roaring noise in my ears. I slammed my door and called the police.
"My neighbor just came into my apartment and tried to assault me."

dearest barry and rosebud

2006-03-06T19:07:00.000-08:00

Thank you for being the only two people on the face of the earth to read my stupid blog. If you didn't leave comments, I wouldn't even write anymore. Who are the other 99 people who have looked at my profile? Do you guys keep signing in under different names or something?

affordable housing

2006-02-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

It was 10 p.m. on Sunday night when I climbed into bed. Walking team practice starts at 5:50 a.m. If you are late, disciplinary action occurs in the form of fines and suspensions. I was well into the first stages of sleep when loud noises jolted me awake. The Herman Apartments are over 150 years old. They were built in a more genteel time; when I can only speculate public drunkeness was a shameful thing. I imagine that domestic abuse was regarded similiarly. I knew it was the strange couple from upstairs. He had moved in a couple of months ago, alone. He worked at a restaurant. A chef's jacket hung in the window of the back seat of his sad Corsica. The thing was battered and falling apart; wires hung from underneath and poked out of a hole for the side lights. The muffler must've hosted a hole the size of Rhode Island. It had one black door. A curious bumpersticker on the back windshield said, "3 nails plus 1 cross equals forgiven." For the first few weeks, I rarely heard him, except for at night. He would come home from the restaurant, I presume, very late. He turned the volume on his television up high. If I listened closely, I could follow conversations and listen to commercials.
One evening, I heard him arrive with a female companion. This ended days of speculation about his sexual preference. Thomas David Mark, my fabulous gay neighbor and dogfather of Henry, had asked him over for a drink and was rebuffed. Neighbor Dude said he was on a prescription medication which had a strong adverse reaction when combined with alcohol. Soon after, Thomas David Mark noticed Neighbor Dude was being visited by a thin meticulous man. He drove a taxi yellow Jeep Wrangler with a Florida license plate. His clothes were too stylish for Palookaville; suede jackets, layering for form not function, etc. The topper(no pun intended, S&M or millinery wise) was when he showed up in a cowboy hat. From that point on, he was known as "Brokeback." TDM and I delighted in telling each other the comings and goings of "Brokeback and Neighbor Dude."
"Do you ever hear anything?" TDM inhaled his cigarette with a devilish look on his face. TDM was getting bored with his young companion. Jim was a Palookaville native. TDM had lived in London, New York and Chicago. Jim thought Brokeback Mountain was about a couple'a closet cases who got it on for twenty years and one of 'em died. TDM and I teared up when discussing the beauty of young Jack and Ennis. We cursed young Ennis for his stubborness. We quoted the line, "We could have a little cow and calf operation. It could be a real sweet life." TDM showed me his ancient dog-eared copy of the New Yorker in which the short story the movie was based on was first published. Jim sat on the sofa laughing at Scooby-Doo.
"Like...?" and I lowered my chin, puckered my lips and raised one eyebrow.
"Well, ye-es, LIKE...Like hot man-on-man action, what else?" TDM threw his hands and head heavenward and laughed, "..and men don't make that face, sweetheart."
"No, I don't hear anything." I was sorry to disapoint. I would have loved nothing more than to imitate their nasty grunty boofoo-love noises for TDM and cracked up with him while Henry and Cooper wrestled at our feet. TDM had made this medical leave bearable for me. He was from Louisiana, had lived in Manhattan, worked in retail, and ended up at the Herman Apartments in Palookaville. We had the makings of a poor man's Will and Grace, with plenty of Jack and Karen thrown in.
The first weekend the female was upstairs, I was subjected to top forty hits of the 80's for an entire weekend. When not singing along with Madonna's Lucky Star, I got to listen to them fuck.
Wuffah, Wuffah, Wuffah, Wuffah, Wuffah went the bed or couch or futon they were on.
"Oooooohhhhhhhh!" cried the loud lady.

"He's not gay." I told TDM.
"Hmmm, maybe he's bi." offered TDM.
"Given the right circumstances, all men are bi." I wagered.
"True, but he ain't in prison and Brokeback seems awfully light in the loafers. We'll see." TDM wins. Don't argue the finer points of 'mo with The 'Mo Extraordinaire.
"Here's the thing, " I stopped and raised my index finger to show the seriousness of the point I was about to present. When TDM had also stopped, crushed out his cigarette with his sneaker, and gave me his full attention, I continued. "I've seen Neighbor Dude in a wife beater." Pause for effect.
"Ye-es..." TDM was smelling what I was cooking.
"Have you beheld him in all his wife-beater glory?" I asked. I already knew he had. TDM misses nothing. He knows everybody's business in the entire building. All 19 units.
"Oh, yes. I have had the distinct displeasure." TDM widened his eyes and made a shocked and dismayed face.
"He's flabby...He's pasty...He has that beer gut..." Oops, I forgot. TDM maintained ND didn't drink. That was the reason he refused TDM's invitation.
"He says he doesn't drink due to the Plavidillicillizone." TDM was serious.
"Well, it's some kind of gut, and he is missing teeth. My point is...You know he can't put the love down, so what is that woman screamin' about?" I made my most agonized confused face.
TDM cracked up. "Who knows? Have you seen her?"
"No, but I would like to just for the gross-out factor." I was imagining a typical Palookaville barfly 40 something chick.

I looked at the clock. 11:24. The crashing and banging and loud voices had been going on for half an hour. They were not slowing down. I got out of bed and went upstairs. I knocked. The door opened. Staring back at me was a man dressed as a woman. He had dust colored shoulder length man hair. Somebody had attempted to coif it into a 'do resembling a woman's. His face was long and all of his features were pointy. Pointy head, pointy nose, pointy chin. He was very skinny. He was wearing a short woman's coat. The sleeves were too short and one of his big man hands rested on the doorknob. He was wearing inexpensive junior girl's jeans. You know the kind that you see at Target or Wal-Mart in the "teen"area of the big carpeted section housing the clothing. He had no hips. His eyes were bloodshot and slightly buggy. The skin around them was creased and wrinkled in the manner of somebody who has existed on booze, cigarettes, coffee and cocaine. The skin around his mouth was lined and cracked up, his lipstick bleeding into the lines. "Yeah?" He/she croaked.
"Hello, I live downstairs." Pause. Most civilized people would take this social cue and say something like, "Oh, no. Can you hear us? We have been drinking. We are so sorry! Hi, I'm Jane and you are? So nice to meet you. I'm sorry about the circumstances. We will quiet down, I promise. You won't hear a peep!"
I had been living in Chicago for too long. I forgot that in Palookaville, apartments were the lowest rank on the housing chain.
Instead, it said, "Yeah, and?" really nasty-like.
It just so happens that I have a personal policy to give as good as I get. I know responding to the asshole makes you the asshole and all of that, but I was pissed. And immature. And a product of Palookaville.
"Yeah, and you're very loud. I am trying to sleep. You live in a building with o-ther pe-ople. I would appreciate it if you would lower the noise level."
Now what, Julie Newmar? What? What?
It turned it's face away and said into the apartment, "Dwayne, You bettah come handle dis, before I kick somebody's ass!" The crypt keeper voice had a Jersey City accent.
Neighbor Dude had a name. Dwayne. Dwayne is a more redneck version of Wayne. I've heard Wayne is the most common name for serial killers. I tried to verify this via a Google Search, but only came up with John Wayne Gacy and Wayne Williams. Perhaps the other serial killers have Wayne as a middle name.
I used to work with a very elegant man who is credited with helping to bring high end fashion to Chicago, thus creating what we know today as the shopping mecca of Oak Street. He once asked me, "Katherine, is it Katherine with an 'i' or 'y'?"
"It's actually just Kathy. My parents thought it was cool in the seventies to name me an informal nick name. Clever, weren't they?" I lied. My parents were hillbillies. None of that ever occurred to them. I was named after the little girl on "Father Knows Best."
"Actually, I'm just John," he replied. "Are you from a Midwestern 'I' state?"
I nodded, lest anybody was eavesdropping.
"So am I! You can tell so much about parents from the names they give their children." he paused to check a price on a Prada travel bag. "It's Kathy with a 'y', right?"
Nod.
"Oh, it could have been so much worse, it could have been an 'i' with a big round dot!"
So true. Thanks to Ma and Pa Kettle for that much. I could have been D'Kathi.

Dwayne stumbled to the door. "I am sorry," he slurred, " I fell out of my chair."
"Look, I am not trying to be difficult. You are very loud. I am just asking you to keep it down."
From behind the door, the thing said, "Jeez, dese people ah as boring as dah ones in New York!"
I looked at Dwayne and said, "Lovely companion you have there."
Dwayne looked at me in a way that suggested solidarity or embarassment. "Uh, yeah...I know."
From behind the door, "Dwayne, you bettah tell huh ta mind huh own business or I sweah ta God...!"
"When I am being kept awake by your noise, it's my business. You can tell your 'lady'? friend that if she's from New York, she should be accustomed to living among people and having some respect for her neighbors." As I said this, I walked down the stairs.
For the next half hour the tranny-thing stomped on the ceiling, yelled obscenities and insults through the floor, threatened my life and yelled at ND, ""You don't know me, Dwayne...I will fuck huh up!"
I dialed the Palookaville Police Department. One of the older guys came out. Feathered thinning hair, porn 'stache, tinted glasses, the works..."So, uh...tell me what ya got goin' on here."
I explained and he went up the stairs. He knocked four times before Dwayne came to the door. He opened it and announced, "Uh, sorry I couldn't get to the door, I was in the bathroom on the can."
Noteable silence from the officer.
"We got a call about a noise problem and some threats by your guest...?" The officer stopped to let Dwayne speak.
"Uh, I don't know nothin' about that..." Dwayne started.
"You don't know nothin' about that, huh? Well, let me tell you what I know. I know you're so drunk you can barely stand and I can smell you out here. The lady downstairs knows that you have a guest, a female claims to be from New York. Izzat right? Yeah, well, she wouldn't know that unless she heard it from somewhere, right? Riiigghht. Your television set is so loud I could hear it from the first floor. I can issue a ticket to you right now for violating the Palookaville noise ordinance-a hundred and fifty dollars. So, listen up. If you can't get along with your neighbors and like to have loud mouthed guests who threaten people, move. If I come back here tonight, you're gettin' a hundred and fifty dollar ticket. I have better things to do than intervene in a situation that could have been settled between you and your neighbor. Got that?"

This should be the end of that nonsense, don't you think?

I've been a bad bad girl

2006-02-22T19:16:00.000-08:00

Siobhan and I were finished with practice and were loitering around the front desk at the Palookaville Athletic Complex.
"Are you girls adding a lap a day?" asked Don, our unofficial coach.
"Yeah, Don." I lied.
Don asked us this every day. In fact, it was the only real coaching repertoire he seemed to possess. I lied to him every day and assured him we had. I wonder if it ever occurred to him that if we really added another lap a day, eventually we would never leave the track. We would just endlessly circle, our home lives left to destruction, eviction notices on our doors, past due utility statements clogging our mailboxes, house pets starving, family members appearing at the side of the track, pleading with us to stop and come home, interventions with Dr. Samson would happen with the entire entourage of friends and family following us round and round...
The surface of the desk was littered with everything from car keys and bananas to tourist guides of El Porto County (featuring pictures of the wife of Eric Snidely, conventionally attractive enough for Palookaville, but with surprisingly pendulous breasts that were featured prominately in a variety of tank top style shirts throughout the guide. She's posed as a faux family with a known gay guy who works for the El Porto County Visitor's Center and her children, who are twin girls and virtual clones of Eric. I was surprised about her breasts which I thought Eric would have had augmented by now, seeing as his best friend, Angelo Pantaglione's fiancee had implants and they seemed to do everything the same, like they are either in competition or just simply like all the same things and prioritize the acquisition of them on the same timetable. I was also surprised [or not, given the discussions Siobhan and I have about Eric's latent homosexual tendencies] by her manly shoulders and the nearly inch and half of dark brown outgrowth of her too-yellow chunky highlights. Wouldn't ya touch that shit up if you were being photographed for a guide that would be seen by everybody in town? That's classic Palookaville/El Porto County for ya; choose a flaming 'mo and a mediocre former stripper desperately in need of a boob lift to represent a typical family.)
Then I saw it. Next to the revised schedule of classes, there was a sign-up sheet. "Foosball Agility Class Ages 8-12." I scanned the names; all of the regulars were signed up, the kids of the SeanPenns, the Snidely's, the Pantagliones, the Popalopogus' and there it was; Trent Charliebrownshoes. Spawn of Charlie Brown Shoes, the first boy that I ever did several nasty things with, God love him. My wheels started turning.
Charlie Brown Shoes started haunting me in the hospital some months prior when my morbidly obese therapist asked me about my patient survey. Upon admittance, patients are given a xeroxed packet of questions and are asked to complete them at their earliest convenience so they could be evaluated by the staff. One of the questions was, "How do you feel about sex?" At the time, I had written, "Somewhat Repulsed." Big Fran had fixed her watery eyes on me. "I see you wrote that you were repulsed by sex on your survey. What's that about?" Big lumbering Fran in her big brightly colored mumu-like tops and her squished lopsided comfortable shoes. She had a quavery, whispery voice and just the very initial jerkiness of Parkinson's.
"The thought of it just repulses me right now." I go through stages like this. Occasionally, the thought of sex is just too gross to consider. Big Fran was desperate to connect it to some kind of unprocessed molestation during my childhood. I wouldn't concede. All of my childhood abuse has been processed quite thoroughly, thanks. Any more processing, and it would be a puree. The repulsion comes from the fact that most of my sexual experiences since CBS have had a predatory aspect to them. The CBS sessions were more pure and innocent. I wasn't drunk and he wasn't pressuring me. We would just make out for hours and things naturally progressed. Those were the frickin' days! No expectations, no disappointments and everything was new. Recently, I was asked if there was a day I could live over, what day would it be. December 26, 1984. The first time I ever made out with a boy-Charlie Brown Shoes.
I noted the time of the agility class as well as the start date. On the same day, at approximately 5 minutes after the start time of the class, I approached the front desk. An older black lady who looked about 50, but was probably 70 given that black people do not age, was behind the desk talking on the phone. "...and she done gone did what? oh, girl...no she didn't....What he said?" Her eyes moved over me as if I were an extension of the counter. "...girl, I gotta call you back in just a minute, I got somebody up here. Aw-ight." She hung up and said, "Yes? You have a question?"
"Yes, I am here for 'Yogilates with Amber' at 6:15, but my little nephew is in the Foosball Agility Class, where is that being held? I'd like to look in on him, if that's ok." Pants on fire.
"Oh, yeah, you gotta little boy in nare? It's down the hall. Go on 'head, look in on 'em. Amber's class 'bout to start, though." She smiled and I saw her gold tooth. Most of the staff wore athletic clothing to work. This woman was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater with metallic gold yarn knitted throughout. Over that, she was wearing a very fitted dark denim vest with a large belt and a collar trimmed with faux leopard fur. Her nails were ghetto long and painted red with gold tips. On every finger she wore a different large ring that resembled those you see on the Home Fashion Shopping Network or those full color glossy flyers that come as inserts in the Sunday paper along with the Wal-Mart and other Big Box Mass retailers' advertisements.
Down the hall, I peeked in the doorway. All manner of little boy moved in synchronized steps across the empty room. Tony Pantaglione stood in the middle of the mirror, monitoring their movements, his titanium elbows bent just oddly enough to make one take notice. Or did I notice because I knew he had fake elbows? Hmmm. Something to ponder for another time. No parents were present. Trent Charliebrownshoes and his dad must come on the other night designated for the class. Charliebrownshoes would never just drop his kid off and leave him. He wouldn't be that kind of parent.
"Did you do your homework?" Charliebrownshoes asked me over the phone. He called every day between 2:30 and 4, after school. I would ask him what he was watching, which was almost always the channel with the cartoons. I would turn my television to the same station so we would be watching the same thing.
"No." I replied.
"Why not?" The Inspector Gadget theme played in my ears from my set and my phone and he hummed along.
"I didn't have any." I was hoping he would say, "Can I come over?" like he sometimes did and we would make out on the living room floor until 10 p.m.
"You should always have homework." he stated, and then made a comment to his cronies about something in the cartoon. Scottie and Steve at CBS's house meant he wouldn't be over. Scottie was a black guy from a crazy ass family who was surprisingly normal. He dressed and talked "white." Steve was the star player of the Palookaville High School's Fighting Chickens football team. He got a scholarship to a Division 1 school even though our football team was one of the worst in the state. He was blond with a receding hairline(steroids, anyone?) and frizzy perm that he used Gheri Curl spray on. He had a beard and mustache and for the first few weeks of ninth grade, I thought he was a teacher.
"How should I always have homework when my teachers didn't assign any?" I asked with my fourteen year old logic. CBS would always make definitive statements with no back-up elaboration. I often felt exasperated while talking with him. When he wasn't stating things that needed explanation and not giving it, he was answering direct questions in an ambiguous manner. "Can't you just say 'yes' or 'no'?" I demanded of him during one phone conversation. "Well, now, that depends..." he began. I rolled my eyes and banged my head against the arm of the sofa in mock despair.
"You could always be studying something." he said piously.
"Uh, yeah, O.K., Dad." I said sarcastically. He had become increasingly paternal in our conversations since a couple of weeks prior while at my house. We were on a rare break from being joined at the tongue. He sat with his back against my sofa. I sat next to him with our legs entwined. "Can I ask you a question?" One of his eyebrows was raised. I nodded and my heart raced with anticipation. What could he be about to ask? I was desperate for the relationship to escalate to a normal boyfriend/girlfriend situation, although I would have sooner died than ever told him. I wanted him to initiate a relationship cue, and I would act like I was going along in my sullen way, "Well, O.K., I guess, If that's what you want..."
"Where is your mother?" he asked. Oh. He just wanted to know if she was coming home so we could move to the next base and he wouldn't have to worry about being walked in on. Maybe he wanted to take off my shirt or something. Oh, my god, did he want to try to have sex with me?
"She won't be home..." I started to tell him that she never gets home from bartending until at least midnight.
"No." He cut me off. "I mean, where is she? She is never here. I am over here alot and I've never seen her."
"She has two jobs. One is bartending and she doesn't get home until late." I was lying. She had maybe half a job. Her time was spent at various bars, but not bartending.
"Don't you get scared being here alone all the time?" He was looking at me and I wanted to finally drop the act and say "Yes, I am scared all the time. Don't leave me. Be with me. Really with me. Be something to me because I have nobody." and fuck him and fall into his arms and cry and beg him to save me from my empty life and hold on to him forever and die all at the same time.
"No." I lied.

I went to the Palookaville Athletic Complex again on the alternate night for the agility class, but no sign of CBS. I had started to shop at the El Porto Grocery because I thought he might be there some time. No CBS. No walking around the corner into the bread aisle where I would come face to face with him, shyly smile, look away...he would initiate some conversation, ask for my number while keeping one eye peeled for his thin but homely wife, with her coarse hair, glasses, potatoe-ish face with the large mole on the side of her nose. I had no idea about his life, where he might be, where I could just run into him after 20 years. I give up. It was a ridiculous childish fantasy anyway. How pathetic. The man is married. It's been 20 years. I am crazy. I am a crazy schizophrenic David Letterman-stalker woman. I leave the PAC and turn onto Sutherland Road. I come to the first stoplight on Highway 241. I look over at the driver next to me. There's something about the profile...he turns his face to me and there's the drowsy eyelids and that bottom lip and his straight Roman nose with just the slightest veer to the right. His hair is greying at the temples. I look away. I have a physical sensation of sinking and being elevated at the same time. I look back. He is still looking at me. He makes a smirky face. I smile at him. the light turns green. I have to turn.

infrastructure

2006-01-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

"Why don't you vant anyone involved in your treatment?" Dr. Samia asked.
I exhaled with force and said, "There is nobody. I am not from here. My family would not be conducive to my treatment."
"You don't have a friend, a co-vorker...a neighbor...somebody who could bring you some of your belongings, you know?"
I wanted to scream at her. What did I just say? There is nobody. I can't call a co-worker; I am the boss. The boss can't call a co-worker! Especially not these co-workers!
This time I inhaled forcefully and looked up at the ceiling. "No! There is nobody!"
We were in the small office next to the smoking room on the unit in County Central. The staff called it the second hand smoke room. It smelled like a bar. Dr. Samia's papers and my chart were spread out on the desk. Dr. Samia's handbag, burgundy fake crocodile with large silver hardware, not designer but trying to pass, sat on the extra chair. Her shoes matched the bag exactly. I wondered what store would carry faux designer bags with exactly-matching shoes. Probably another country. Her suit was tweed with burgundy trim around the lapels and cuffs. Chanel-ish, but not Chanel. The wool was the course itchy kind, the weave of the fabric was loose, the fibers were large, the buttons were fake horn and the pants and jacket were lined. Bon Marche. I couldn't put my finger on which low priced knock off label it may be. Probably from another country. Dr. Samia was Muslim. She came to the unit on the holiday of Eid dressed in a knee length tunic covered in elaborate embroidery and beading. Under the tunic she wore pants that were very tapered at the ankle. Her hair and makeup were carefully done. She had a light complexion-very light-fair, even. Her brown eyes were enormous and her hair was long and shiny and dark brown. She was beautiful and I told her so. She was very pleased. I think she took the compliment as a sign of progress. She spoke with a middle eastern accent that turned w's into v's. "I don't vant you to vorry about vork right now, you know?" She would say while nodding vigorously.
"Tell me vhy you don't think your family vould be helpful at this time." She pushed away from the desk, crossed her legs and gave me her full attention.

"Katherine! Phone call!" one of the staff called into the dining area. Phone call? It was well after 5 pm eastern. The human resources department representative was the only person that had my number. I thought perhaps Linda was working late. I picked up the receiver.
"This is Katherine."
"Kat, it's mom. You ok?" How did my mother get this number? This is a private number. My release form didn't give permission for any person to have access to this number. Who would have given her the number?
"Uh..yeah, ma..I'm fine."
"Well, I just called to tell you that your brother Jeff was stabbed at Maine Street tavern, Your brother Steve is missing; just up and left, didn't tell nobody where he was off to, and I am going to divorce your step father. He's been havin' an affair on me for I don't know how long. I have proof he's been payin' her bills and I don't know what all....He told me I bankrupted him! can you believe that?....Kat? You there?"
"Mom, I am in the hospital. Do you understand I am in the hospital for depression? I told you I would call you when I got out. How did you get this number?"
"I got it from Rick at your store."
"No, you didn't. Rick doesn't have it."
"Well, Rick gave me the number to Carol, who gave me the number to the Human Resources Lady, who gave me the number to the Benefits lady..."
"Wait, you called all of these people at my corporate office? Do you have any idea how inappropriate that is? Of course you don't! You don't care how you humiliate me as long as you can call me and unload this Jerry Springer bullshit! Don't call me here again and don't call my work again for any reason. Goodbye, mother!" I hung up the phone. I was humiliated beyond words. As if Linda the human resources assistant needed to know my mother didn't have my phone number.

"I am really really mad at her, you know!?!" Dr. Samia was mad. Her eyebrows furrowed together and her mouth was all frowned up. "Why would she do that? That was just...stupid, you know!?! It is like she is trying not to help you, like she is trying to hurt you, you know!?!"

I know.

the upward spiral

2006-01-27T09:34:00.000-08:00

My mind is racing lately; signifying the upswing into hypo mania. I can't keep a thought in my head for more than 2 seconds and I want to have sex with everyone I see. Watch Out!

pants on fire

2006-01-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

In the wake of all this James Frey broo-ha-ha, I want to declare that nearly every word of this blog has been twisted, embellished and exaggerated for your reading pleasure. There is but a modicum of truth in the whole damn thing. Here's a clue; all fiction is based in truth. All truth is subject to perception. Why didn't he just call it a "fictionalized memoir" and be done with it? Oh, yeah...leave Oprah out of this. I loves me some Oprah. Oprah should be Queen of the Frickin' World. Imagine how cute we would all be....

histrionic preservation

2006-01-22T10:59:00.000-08:00

Palookaville's Historical District contains a residential neighborhood called Rogers Grove. It is one of those neighborhoods that are on the cusp of gentrification. I live in a 150 year old building called the Herman Apartments. It is a 19 unit complex that is commonplace in any Chicago neighborhood, but highly unusual in Palookaville. Most of the architectural details are still intact; high ceilings, plaster walls, large dark wood crown molding and trim, dark wood floors and french doors on the dining room, etc. When I moved in, it was owned by a hillbilly woman named Earlene and her pot bellied husband, Jim. Earlene and Jim would rent to anybody who had the first month's rent and deposit. Many of the residents were known drug peddlers. Rumor has it Big Paula, who lived in the basement unit, payed Earlene her rent in marijuana. The kid in Unit 5 would run out of his door anytime a car horn sounded. He was running a drive-thru crack service right out of the building. When the guys who delivered my furniture from Chicago witnessed one of his transactions, they were nervous and asked, "What kind of town is this?"
One day I came home to find flyers on every door with a picture of the guy from number 3 (Key Largo Brown's cousin, who during the Prince/Purple Rain/Morris Day and the Time phase that took Palookaville by storm, wore an assymetrical jerry (jheri?) curl, a metallic trench coat and eyeliner which, sadly, pulled him crazy amounts of ass). Emblazoned across the top were the words, "Armed and Dangerous-Wanted for First Degree Murder-If Seen, Call the Palookaville Police Department." He had shot a guy in the face the night before. The guy owed him money. For crack, of course. Key Largo's cousin had no less than 4 "baby mamas" that stopped by on a regular basis to fight with him. One fight I will never forget is the time that the youngest and most ghetto-oriented mama came by "...cause (she) wanted to kick it." Now for all the die-hard honkies out there, that means she wanted to make sweet love to him. Or something like that. Now, Key Largo's cousin was down with the program, but he had some standards. "Where my baby at?" he axed.
"They at Big Mama an 'ems." she replied.
"My baby bettah not be innat hot ass cah." He gave her fair warning.
"They not! I tole you they at Big Mama's!" She was getting loud.
"Girl, don't get all loud up in here. Ima tell you one. mo. time; my baby bet. not. be. in. nat. hot. ass. cah." Silence. Door shuts. And then the hot nasty funky muffled love sounds commence. Approximately 11 minutes later, the door to number 3 opens. Key Largo's cousin and the mama exchange parting words. I look out the window. Two stories down next to the curb is parked a small grey Toyota Corolla. Through the window, I can see a baby strapped in a car seat. A hot. ass. cah. seat. Damn. Just as the mama gets as far as the car's bumper, Key Largo's cousin appears out of nowhere and with one fluid motion removes the belt from his ivory canvas "manpris" which match his ivory canvas hat, and strikes the mama full force in the face. She fell in the street, screaming and covering her face with her hands. I waited. I watched him hit her once more across her shoulders and raise the belt again. Then, I reached for the phone to call the police.
Number 10 was the lair of one Harris Marvelle. Harris fancied himself a ladie's man. The only woman not paid to succumb to his charms was Earlene. Harris paid his rent on his own schedule, ran a huge orange extension cord from under his door to the outlet in the main hallway to power everything in his apartment, was the loudest individual known to walk the face of the earth, and constantly had a foul odor seeping from under his door from his tropical fish tank that he never ever cleaned. Harris liked to cruise the parking lot of the Big Chip Casino. Desperate female gambling addicts prostitute themselves in the parking lot. Harris would bring them back to his apartment. Because I lived directly below Harris, I was often disturbed from sleep in the middle of the night by urgent knocking on my door. "Who is it?" I would ask through the door.
"Is Harrold in there?" a female voice would ask.
"Who?" I would ask back.
"Uhh, Harr....Harrison?"
"Hell, no! There is no Harrold or Harrison or HARRIS in here! His nasty ass lives upstairs!Don't knock on this door again!" I was very tough through the door. Don't meet me in a dark alley with a door between us.
"Oh, sorry..." They would say as they ran up the next flight of stairs. They were the pros, coming back to try to rustle up a trick.
"Hello, Earlene. How are you? Did you do something different to your hair?" He could sound just like Billy Dee Williams. Earlene actually giggled. "Oh, gawd, no! Same ol' hair I've had fer years!" She reached up and smoothed her Dorothy Hamill. Harris always greeted her with a compliment. I don't think Earlene had ever been complimented in her life. She absolutely lit up every single time. Now, Harris was probably 34. Earlene was every bit of 60. Harris was a former Division 1 lineman. He had to be 6'5" and 320. Earlene was...well, an old white lady. She wore sweatshirts with puffy ducks adorned with country blue bows on them. She usually wore the same one for days on end. Her skin had that weird grey undertone of somebody who has smoked a considerable amount of weed daily for many years. The most freaky thing about Earlene was her teeth. They were the same exact color as her skin. She wore a huge pair of eyeglasses. They were square shaped, gold plated and tinted a peachy tan color to about mid point on the lens. The ear pieces were shaped like rounded Zs. They had to be circa 1978.
One evening, I was going down the stairs as Harris was coming up.
"May I ask you a question?" he asked.
I paused on the bottom stair.
"Why don't you have a man? You're so fine."
I laughed and continued down the stairs.
"I'm serious! Seriously!"
I just walked out the door. As if...
To be continued.

funny puppy thing II

2006-01-21T19:35:00.000-08:00

Recently, Henry and I went to the Palookaville Pet Store. Henry is a minor celebrity in Palookaville. People regularly stop to rub his belly, scratch his head, etc. Drivers stop in the street to say hello to him or ask me what kind of dog he is, etc. There was a little girl in the store, maybe 3 years old with platinum fairy hair and huge blue eyes. She asked if she could pet "... the pretty doggie." Whenever anybody pets Henry's head for more than 2 seconds, he falls on the floor and presents his belly. The little girl pointed and announced, "THAT'S A PRIVATE!"

medius ocris

2006-01-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

The Palookaville Mental Health Walking Team 2006 is in bad shape, literally and figuratively. A third of the team has been either suspended, injured or out for personal reasons. Tula, our Peruvian MVP was the latest casualty. This was quite a setback. Tula is a natural walker; small, slight and built low to the ground for speed (Her Incan ancestors were the builders of a roadway system that is the precursor to today's highways, yet they did not discover the wheel. This suggests most travel was done on foot). Our current line up is no match for even the league's worst team, the Dawgpatch MH Walking Team, known in the league as "The Waddlers" due to the size of most of the members. The morale of the team has sunk tremendously in large part because of our winter practice headquarters, the Palookaville Athletic Complex.
The PAC, like most of Palookaville, is still stuck in the 80's. The color scheme is black, gray and red. Cheesy rounded fonts spell out "sun tan" and "massage" down the sides of the doorways. A huge graphic of a guy with permed highlighted hair wearing a tank top with neon lettering and the slogan, "Fitness means dedication" hangs between the men's and women's locker rooms.Team members joke that it is the perfect location for a Napoleon Dynamite sequel. Some of the regular members have been assigned walkon roles in the team version of the film. The skinny guy, Matt, who polices the direction of the track by passive agressively asking, "Uh, is this the right direction?" is a shoe in for a Kip sidekick or stand-in. Dr. Samson, the elvish psychologist should appear as himself, offering therapy to Uncle Rico or Tina the Llama. The ultimate walkon is of course one Eric Snidley, who would be a perfect assistant to Rex, the martial arts instructor who asks, "Do ya think I'm a loser cuz I go home ta Starla every night?" while gesturing to a picture of a male to female transvestite bodybuilder in drag. Snidely has come to represent something personal to each remaining member of the Walking Team.
Snidley owns a huge used car dealership in Palookaville. Adjacent to the lot is his office. The lot and office complex boasts no less than 14 signs bearing, "Snidley Pre-Owned Automobiles" The sizes of the signs vary. The color scheme is royal blue against a white background bordered with silver background. Some of the signs are backlit and stay illuminated at all times. They are on the roof, in every window, on each telephone pole flanking the lot, on each side of the two entrances/exits and on a massive billboard on the north side of the lot. They are visible from every possible angle on Maine Street. Across the bottom of every single sign is written, "Eric Snidely, Owner and President." Kiki pointed this out during practice. This display of ostentatious boastfulness represents the ultimate in poor taste to Kiki, who aspires to civility, subtlety and graciousness. It really bothers her because her mother is ill mannered and inappropriate, and Kiki has tried to become the opposite all of her life. We spent the remainder of that practice declaring ourselves "Owner and President" of different things in our lives. For example, I am "Owner and President" of my own big white ass. Siobhan swears she is going to show up at practice weraing a nametag that says, "Siobhan Sullivan, Owner and President of a Chin Strap Dildo."
Roisin is a musician, so the eighties hair metal that Snidely insists play between 6 and 8 a.m. sets her teeth on edge. She has written anonymous letters to the owner and site manager. She has conducted an informal poll of all members of the club present between these hours. Most of the members were wearing headphones they had to remove when Roisin approached them. Many couldn't discern between his music and the regular station. She found one ally in a middle aged woman wearing a fuschia shiny tank top and a pair of floral running shorts that split up the sides to the waist band. Her skin was loose and her thighs were mottled with celluite and roadmapped with vericose veins. The shorts just concealed her deflated ass. Yet she ran around the track with abandon. The woman told Roisin she had been a member for years and had complained several times to no avail. When she asked Don, the friendly elderly desk attendant why Snidley could demand his muscial preference despite objections from other members, Don just replied, "We have to have that hard rock stuff for Eric." The reason it really bothered Roisin is despite being talented, her father never once complimented her. He didn't like her choice of classical guitar and insisted on blasting "new country" like Shania Twain while he worked in the garage. When Roisin expressed her dislike, he told her, "Tough shit, Miss Priss, I'll play what I want as long as I pay the bills around here."
A common thread among the Palookaville Walkers is a desire to live a life that isn't common to our experience. We all at some point struck out from Palookaville and had extraordinary adventures in big cities, foreign countries or destinations significant for thier oddness. Through some ill-fated accident, an illness, a death, a pregnancy, a marriage, a divorce, we've all returned to Palookaville to regroup before heading off again in search of our lives. The regrouping for some of us has taken quite a while. Now that we are back, most of us have settled back into the Palookaville way of life; television, fast food, mainstream films, suburban fashion and limited experiences. Except for Siobhan. She will not go calmly into that dark night. She follows an organic vegetable based raw diet, breast fed her daughter until she was three, regularly fasts, has had waist length dreadlocks, studied with a Reiki master and lived on a Hawaiian island in a tent. When Siobhan was in middle school, her mother sewed designer labels onto her K-mart jeans. The "cool" girls busted her on it publicly and she never lived it down. That's the last time Siobhan tried too fit in.
Siobhan hates Eric Snidely. He represents all things Palookaville; the flashy American gas guzzling car, the preoccupation with 80's music, the Alpha male posturing, his overall cheesiness.
"He makes me feel bad about myself." She told me on the way home from practice. My heart seized up a little. She was speaking my truth. The deep down truth you don't speak, even to yourself. "He reminds me that I live here, a place where a vapid dork like him is considered a big deal."
I was relieved. She didn't exactly speak my truth. Eric Snidley makes me feel bad about myself for a million different reasons. He reminds me of my age. He reminds me of all the youthful indescretions that are sad and shameful. He reminds me that I am no longer attractive. He embarasses me. I am embarrassed to be my age, still regretting mistakes I made as a child. A directionless, parentless child. I am embarrassed to care about the opinion of this ridiculous person who is so base and common and simplistic; who shares none of my core values or beliefs. This parody of an alpha male gym ape.

one man

2006-01-15T17:15:00.000-08:00

"...'A time comes when silence is betrayal.' That time has come for us in relation to Viet Nam."

origination deflation negation explanation

2006-01-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

I have caved under the pressure of Team Shrink; Dr. Samson (Mini-Shrink, the Shrinky Dink, etc.) and Barden D. Arnette(Captain Nerdtron) and have been taking a generic antidepressant for nearly a week. My compulsive behavior is in check; no need to eat large quantities of carbohydrates or spend every penny I have on shit I don't really need. I have no organizational skills. I wake up every two hours and have difficulty getting out of bed. I can't think of a thing to write about, and if I have an idea, it is fleeting and difficult to develop. I can't seem to hold the idea in my mind long enough to develop any details or a coherent storyline. They say these side effects should wane in a couple of weeks. The first couple of days on the drug, strange thoughts would pop into my head, like a time lapse photo image of my face emaciating. I have no sense of urgency about my dirty dishes or laundry. Ordinarily, I would at least be concerned about these tasks, even if I didn't get to them. I will remain on the meds until the third week, and if these side effects aren't nearly gone, I will stop taking the drug.

I also started classes this week. Damn, textbooks are freakin' expensive! So, that is why I haven't been writing as much. Tales of County Central and Palookaville will be back soon.

sly-cotropics

2006-01-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

"Is it unreasonable for me to want a diagnosis before taking any more pharmaceuticals?" I asked my mini-shrink.
Dr. Samson is about 50-ish. He's probably 5'1". He works out every morning with Eric Snidely of the Palookaville Snidelys at the Palookaville Athletic Complex, the teeming epicenter of Palookaville Society. They are usually there when the Palookaville Mental Health Alliance Walking Team 2006 convenes for practice. He freaks Siobhan out. "He's like a hair-covered adolescent. He strains so hard to keep up with Snidely. Did you see that? His eyes almost popped out of his head when he tried to lift that weight!"
Their form is terrible. When they lift the dumbells in a standing position, their upper torsos jerk backward violently. Snidely is a grunter/growler/yeller; one of those dudes who grunt, growl or yell when they lift a heavy weight. He insists on listening to 80's hair metal every morning over the Complex's system, much to the dismay of the Walking Team. He's also married to a former stripper, and will go out of his way to inform you of this and the fact that she's 15 years younger than he. It's embarrassing. When we were teenagers, he would hang out with some of the "cool" Palookaville guys. I remember talking with his friends at the beach one day. My friend Stacey inquired about Eric. "Who? Snidely?...aw, man, we're not hangin' out with that dude anymore. Last night we were out at club in Chicago and that guys dancin' like this..."Bob Fortis started imitating Snidely's dance moves. It looked like the dance Emilio Estevez does in "The Breakfast Club" and Billy Idol in his videos pre-plastic surgery and dreadlocks; sort of like throwing punches in time to the beat with a really serious look on his face."...we were like, 'Snidely, get away from us dancin' like that, ya cheesehead!'"
What's more embarassing is I rang in 1987 with Snidely's tongue in my mouth. Happy Frickin' New Year. Alcohol is Satan.

The Doc is slumped down in his chair with one leg up, resting the heal of his shoe on the seat. He looks like a strange bearded 12 year old who is so bored, he can no longer sit correctly.
"Nooo...it isn't...unreasonable." He puts his leg down and scoots back into the chair. "The thing is, it doesn't matter what your diagnosis is..." He puts both of his tiny hands in the air, palms out with fingers spread, "...there's really only ten total medications for any of 'em. You got some anti-depressants, some mood stabilizers and the anti-psychotics. The anti-depressants are preferable to the mood stabilizers because the side effects are generally more tolerable."
I have been off of any medication since October. Many of my compulsive behaviors have come back; cleaning, organizing, shopping, spending, editing and re-editing this blog, etc. I am still depressed and anxious. The level of anxiety is rising as the season moves along. Soon I suspect I will transition to my hypo-manic phase after this long depressive bout. The anxiety precedes the upswing. I am afraid I will take on too much and crash again in the fall. When I think about more than the immediate future, the cycle of thought that takes me to suicidal ideation kicks in, so I abruptly "thought-stop", a technique I learned at County Central. It involves identifying "trigger" thoughts and switching your focus to something else. The problem with thought-stopping is I can't get much thinking about long range goals done. I keep focused on what is in front of me, and that's how I can get through the day.
When I was in the hospital programs, I was taking 5 medications per day. I was so drugged, it took all of my energy to attend the 4 hours of the outpatient program. I would get out of bed, shower, put on something off of the floor, drive to the hospital, sit through the programs, drive home and climb back into bed. I did this for 5 weeks. Then, one Friday I woke up, looked at the pill organizer on my nightstand, and ignored it. Perhaps if I were 97 and in a nursing home, I could count on a staff to keep up this meds regimen. At 7 am, I was supposed to take Synthroid for my sluggish thyroid. After breakfast, I was supposed to take a Welbutrin XL-300 mg. At 3 pm, I was supposed to take 75 more mg of Welbutrin. At 8 pm, I was supposed to take 30 mg of Lexapro. At 10pm, I was supposed to take 50 mg of Trazadone. Who's life works that way? Who could remember it all? How could I ever keep this up and try to work at a normal job, let alone my job which requires complete schedule flexibility? Fuck it. Ridiculous bullshit.
"The thing about the meds is, the side effects are immediate. The benefits are gradual." Doc was using his arms and hands to demonstrate the initial intensity of the side effects(hand up high) versus the benefits(other hand down low) and the graduation of diminishing effects(slowly moves hand down) and increased benefits(slowly moves other hand up).

"Do you think it's weird that he has guinea pigs?" I was walking with Tula and Siobhan during practice. "I mean, a man in his 50's? A psychologist? With children's pets?"
Tula is from Peru. English is her second language. "How so? Does he eat them?" she asked. Seriously.
"No! I didn't mean weird like that...wait... do they eat guinea pigs in Peru?"
Tula didn't flinch. "Yes."
There was a pause in the conversation for Siobhan and I to absorb this. Bon Jovi blared in the background.."Cuz I'm A Cowboy...On a Steel Horse I Riiide...I'm Wanted (Waantteed) Dead Or Aliiiiive!"
"I will have many questions about guinea pig cuisine in a moment, but let's get back to my shrink being a 50 year old dude with guinea pigs. That he's named. He's named them-the guinea pigs."
"What are their names?" asked Siobhan.

"There's Buster, Ginger and Heather." Doc had his foot back in his chair and was counting off his guinea pigs on his fingers.
"Why would you ever name a guinea pig 'Heather'?" I ask him. No matter what we begin talking about during a session, it digresses to some inane topic like this.
"Because I didn't like Ashley." he looked pleased.
"Why would you ever name a guinea pig 'Ashley'?" I ask incredulously. "Did you want this guinea pig to grow up to be a stripper or just really common?"
I don't think he followed, just shrugged and told me he suspects Buster "slept with" Ginger. It seems she weighs a little more than Heather, indicating she might have "some buns in the oven."

"Now, wait...have you ever eaten guinea pig?" I ask Tula.
"Oh, Yes! It is a delicacy in Peru. My grandmother grows them, eh, breeds them for that purpose." Another pause while Siobhan and I process. "I've Seen a Million Faces...and I've Rocked Them Aa-All...Cuz I'm A Cowboy!..."
"How are they prepared?" Siobhan asks.
"They are broiled and served with a rich sauce. It's delicious!"Tula went on to explain that there is a custom observed when eating the head of the guinea pig. "There is a bone, shaped like a wolf. You take it out and paint it black and place it in the bottom of a shotglass. After you take a shot, your fortune can be read."

Folie `a Deux

2006-01-07T10:59:00.000-08:00

Angelo Pantaglione was sitting on the couch in his parent's basement. He was 19 years old. He had a part time job at his mother's dress shop in the Palookaville Mall. He spent four hours per day at the shop, unpacking ladies clothing, organizing the stock area, lifting and moving fixtures, etc. He spent the remainder of the day in his parent's house, either in his room or in the basement, watching television and trying to avoid Big Tony. Five years had passed since he'd had sex with Natasha on this couch. Since that time, he'd been with a few of the C and D list girls in Palookaville. Natasha had told two of these girls about his rather incredible endowment. They were curious and wanted to see for themselves. The others, like Natasha, just wanted to have any contact they could with Tony, and figured Angelo was close enough. He'd continued a secretive relationship with Natasha for three years. They never conducted themselves as boyfriend/girlfriend. He was embarassed of her, she of his arm.They were both fine with meeting at her house while her mother was at bingo, sneaking to the basement in the middle of the night, going at it in the back seat of the now 15 year old Lincoln that he shared with his mother. He stopped seeing her abruptly when a rumor went around that she had slept with Key Largo Brown. Key Largo was the 1984 Mr. Foosball Honoree, also from Palookaville. That's not why Angelo suddenly found Natasha so undesirable. Key Largo (named for the city in which he was conceived) was black. The Pantagliones were avid racists. This was especially interesting because the Pantaglione lineage had been infiltrated by the invasion of the Moors. What was downright hilarious was Big Tony's taste in clothing and cars. Cadillacs, bright colors, yellow gold...many people in Palookaville called him "Pimp-taglione." Big Tony and Victoria were finally doing well enough to buy a new car, this time a Buick that, of course, Big Tony commandeered.
"I gotta drive a nice car, I'm a salesman. I gotta look the part! If ya wanna be successful, ya gotta look successful!" He used this logic to justify his wardrobe, which became more extravagant and less tasteful every year. He wore only Staymor Diamond Freebelt trousers. Because of his diminutive stature, they had to be special-ordered. Staymor Diamond had revolutionized men's trousers back in 1958 with the invention of the Freebelt style. It basically had an adjustable waistband with an extended tab closure that made it permissable to not wear a belt. The Staymor Diamond offices and factory were located right in Palookaville. Big Tony would go to the store located right next to the factory and make quite a show of ordering his pants and blazers, which he often paired with white patent leather loafers. This was all a part of his deep seated neurosis to create an image of success.
Truth be told, it was Victoria who was bringing home the bacon. She worked long hours at the dress shop, and made it quite successful. For years, it was the only store in town that carried designer jeans. She brought home more money than Big Tony, but it was never spoken of. Big Tony carried on making of all of the decisions; financial or otherwise. He implied in conversations that he was the primary breadwinner. He referred to Victoria's shop as "her little job" or "her little store."
There's a psychological phenomenon called Shared Psychotic Disorder. A delusion develops in an individual as a result of being in a primary relationship with a person with a prominent delusion; referred to as "the inducer." For example, if a suggestible person becomes involved with a person who believes he is Jesus Christ, they may come to believe it as well and even come to think of themselves as a disciple or Apostle or in the case of a female, Mary Magdalene. It is arguable that a less severe version of shared psychotic disorder is essentially the "glue" to any long standing primary relationship. In the case of Big Tony and Victoria, it was true.
Angelo was listening to his parents argue about him. Big Tony had come home and started drinking. Victoria had already had her two glasses of wine out of a box in the fridge.
"What's he gonna do, Vic? He can't just sit here in da basement his whole life!?!" Big Tony bellowed.
"SSSHHHH, Ant'ny, he'll hear you! He'll do something. Right now, he doesn't know...he's just a kid! Give him some time!" Victoria thought she was being quiet, but was tipsy and actually talking quite loudly. "He's not like the other kids, he's a late bloomer!"
Actually, Victoria didn't mind having Angelo around. Alegra had moved to her grandparent's house after graduation to take care of her grandfather, who had Alzheimer's. Angelo was home when Joey(referred to as the oops baby. Born when Angelo and Alegra were six. Also groomed for foosball greatness, but flunked out of college his sophomore year, lost interest in foosball and married a 40 year old woman when he was 21.) got home from school, made him a snack or dinner, did the laundry for her and the dishes. Angelo was the only help she received around the house.
"Late bloomer! Ha! He's a god damn freak! That kid's gotta get off his ass an' get a job, Vic! I ain't runnin' no flop house, here! Whassamatter with him? A grown boy should wanna little money, a nice car, a girl,... somethin'!" Big Tony came to the top of the stairs. "Angelo! Upstairs! Right now!"
Joey, 13, looked over at Angelo, frightened.
Angelo reached over and knocked Joey's baseball hat off of his head, "It's alright buddy. Don't worry like that. You look like a pussy."
Angelo leaned forward to stand up from the couch. Suddenly a twinge of pain went through his withered left arm. He clasped it with his right hand and grimaced. He remembered Joey and tried to recover. Too late. The nosey little fucker had seen him.

black swan

2006-01-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

Angelo Pantaglione did not have an easy go of it. Born the second son to Big Tony and Victoria Pantaglione, he would always remain in the shadow of the first born. Being born into a family with a semi-famous champion foosball player for an older brother had it's advantages. A certain amount of notoriety preceeds you. It's good to be the brother of a big fish in a little pond. Big Tony had played his way through school in the tough side of the city. Foosball paid for college and helped him land the contacts that he needed to make a comfortable living selling funeral supplies. When Little Tony came along with a natural supereminent foosball ability, Big Tony had counted on a brood of foosball champions.
Angelo and Alegra were born on Veteran's Day, 1967. They defied medical convention by being born late and large. Angelo weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces. His sister, 9 pounds 1 ounce. Another striking characteristic about Angelo was his length. He was 23 inches long. Victoria nearly died. When Big Tony held his twins for the first time, he wept. Not for joy or happiness. For sorrow and shame and the loss of a dream. Little Angelo's left arm was markedly smaller than his right. Big Tony's dreams for a Foosball Dynasty died that day. Little Tony's load got considerably heavier. It was now all on him to carry out his father's interrupted aspirations.
Little Angelo, spurned by his father, became the darling of his Mother and Nana. He was mollycoddled and spoiled until Big Tony came home. Then, Little Angelo would retreat to a quiet corner to suck his fingers and try to stay out of the line of fire. Throughout elementary school and junior high, Little Angelo grew like a weed. In 7th grade he was 6 feet tall. He wore a size 13 shoe. His good arm was lithe and muscular. His small arm stayed smaller, shorter and somewhat withered in appearance. Whenever he felt overwhelmed or anxious he would ask for a pass to the restroom, fold himself onto the floor between the wall and the toilet and suck the fingers of the small left hand. He comforted himself this way until he went to high school. His face was assymetrical, but appealing. He had an infectious grin and sparkly blue eyes. But his power lay in his one dimple. He had one dimple on the right side of his face. Without the dimple he would have been cute enough, but the dimple tipped him into adorable. He mastered a series of looks that he used on his Mother and Nana to get his way. When he got older he used the same looks on his twin sister's best friend, a girl who would come to be known in P-ville as Natasha "Natasha Will" Wilson. After the bras were frozen, the ouija board was upturned and the last toilet paper roll wrapped around the last neighbor's tree, he ended up losing his virginity to her on the family's couch in the basement after the rest of the pajama party revelers had conked out in the living room.
"Ange, you gotta swear you won't tell nobody!" she grew up across the street from his grandparent's house. He'd known her all of his life.
"I swear! I won't!" He gave her the look. The one where he looked deep into her eyes and widened his slightly while tilting his head just so. His eyes twinkled in the dark. The light fell on the dimple. She was slightly mesmerized.
"Angelo....?" She'd forgotten about his "retarded" arm about 12 minutes ago, when his right hand slipped under her shirt.
"Yeah?" He was unbuttoning her pants.
"Do...you...love...me?" He looked at her. He almost lost his erection. He felt kind of like when his older brother would sneak up behind him and punch him in the kidney. Momentarily stunned. This had never occurred to him. He remembered what was at stake and hurriedly tried to recall everything Tony had told him about sex. Tony knew alot. He had slept with 37 assorted females before his senior year in high school. After his senior year, he had nearly doubled that number. "Just tell 'em what they want to hear. They just want you to say it so they won't feel bad about doin' it. Feelings Shmeelings, they'll get over it. If they're doin' it with you, they've probably already done it with somebody else. Girls who fuck in high school are sluts anyways." Tony always talked about every girl he'd had an encounter with in detail. Angelo always felt a little embarassed when he would see these girls in school, knowing what his brother had done to them the night before. He also found it a little arousing. Tony said he was telling him valuable information about women.
Angelo nodded emphatically. "Yeah, ...uh, Yes, I...I...love you."
Natasha was an outcast at school. The only person who was as invisible as she was Alegra Pantaglione. Alegra, as a girl, was relegated to helping her mother do all of the housework. Her education wasn't important because she would grow up to marry someone who would support her. Tony's fame in Palookaville didn't extend to his odd untalented siblings. In fact, with as much ass as Tony was pulling, it was all from the B-list girls, some of their mothers, a few of his mom's employees at the dress shop and a substitute teacher or two. He never pulled a Palookaville A-lister. He had better luck with out-of town girls. That's because Big Tony acted like an asshole during in-town tournaments. And because they really didn't have any money. They all wore clothes from Sears. Tony didn't have his own car. They didn't leave school for lunch. No matter how famous he got, Tony lived in the moderately priced houses in the middle of town and his Dad drove a ten year old used Lincoln. In rare moments of self doubt, Big Tony would tell Victoria that he was a "chump in a poor man's Cadillac."
The house revolved around Tony's schedule. They ate, slept and worked in accordance with his practices, training and tournaments. Natasha and Alegra were friends out of necessity and convenience. Natasha secretly dreamed of Tony Pantaglione like other girls dream of actors or rock stars. She thought someday that he would suddenly notice her, the girl next door (to his grandparents), fall in love with her, marry her and she would finally show all of those snotty rich girls at Palookaville High. On the night of Alegra's sleepover(attended mostly by girls who just wanted to take a peak at Tony's room, be in Tony's house and had no real interest in being Alegra's friend), Natasha's mother dropped her off two hours earlier than the designated invitation "when?" time.
Natasha's mother was old. She had become pregnant during menopause and was now pushing 60 with a 14 year old. She was exhausted and as a result Natasha was odd. Her clothing was matronly and her hair remained in the same style as 6th grade; long, mouse brown, with bangs. Her parents could not be persuaded to spring for contacts, so she wore brown tortoiseshell glasses. Natasha rang the doorbell. Tony came to the door. She always had his schedule memorized because Alegra's lfe revolved around it. She knew he would be home during this window of time, alone. He didn't greet her, just stood there looking at her. He didn't even know his sister was having a slumber party tonight. He was due to be on a bus in exactly 2 and a half hours to go to a tournament. "Hi, Tony." Natasha flushed.
Tony was used to girls showing up at his house uninvited. He never wondered how they knew he would be alone. He didn't care. He knew what she was here for. He stuck his head out the door and looked up and down the street to make sure nobody saw him invite this woofer in. He smiled and took her hand and led her to his room. Once inside, he perfunctorily fucked her, lay atop her and sweated for a minute and rose. He disappeared to the bathroom to urinate. When he came back in, he looked surprised to find her there. She was still undressed and laying in his bed. "Uh...you have to go now." He said as he handed her underpants to her. He left the room while she dressed. Several minutes went by as he stood in the hallway. He went to the living room and turned on the television. That chick was takin' too long. He went back to his room to make sure she wasn't stealing his Foosball shirts. She was sitting on his bed, crying. Oh shit. One of these. "Um...Is there a problem?"
"I..(sob).. thought it..(sob).. would be d-d-different." This chick looked familiar, maybe. He wasn't sure. Had he done her before? He tried to avoid doin' 'em twice. Otherwise, they get the wrong idea and think you have a thing going.
"Look,...Do I know you?" He had to show no mercy. If you act nice to them, they just get worse. "You just show up here...What did you think? You've got to clear out, babe. My parents are gonna be back."

sister christian

2006-01-04T09:31:00.000-08:00

Sandy looked at me. I looked at her. She raised her left eyebrow and made a smirky-face. I raised my left eyebrow, side-smirked and nodded. I was pickin' up what she was puttin' down.
Summer had once again alluded to the running nude story. Bob looked slightly amused, slightly uncomfortable and slightly turned on all at the same time. Stripped of all of her paraphernalia, implements and pageant varnish, Summer would probably appeal to teenage boys and pedophiles. She made sure to show every person on the unit a picture of herself all dolled up in a red strapless dress. She did not look unlike a Playboy Playmate hopeful with a huge rack which had been concealed until this point under her men's XL T-shirts. The men of the unit, which at that time consisted of Bob, Dave and first-day Lenny, were all suddenly slightly fascinated by her. They were much more attentive when she spoke. Their eyes stayed on her a little longer when she walked in a room.
Bob interrupted Summer's intro to the nude story, "Summer, I think everybody's familiar with why you're here. When I asked everyone to tell their most embarrassing moment,I meant one in which you were cognizant. Do you have a story about a time like that?"
"Oh, Gosh...yes I do! My husband and I were at a pool party with lots of friends and family. My oldest daughter wanted to jump off the diving board with me." I looked at Sandy again. She was with me. "Well, we jumped and when we came up, my dad came over to me with a towel and said, 'Summer Louise, cover yourself!' I looked down at myself and my whole top was down around my waist! Can you imagine!?! All of my friends and family had seen me half naked!" She put her hand over her mouth and threw her head back, "I just wanted to die!"
Sandy looked like Heather Locklear's tired chain smoking sister with a bad hairstylist. Mind you, she had been in the ICU for three days after taking an assload of pills. She looked at Summer and asked point blank, "You got somethin' with bein' naked?"
Summer looked surprised, then caught herself, "You would think so, wouldn't you!?!" She laughed. "I don't know why I just keep finding myself naked!"
Bob looked at me, "Kathy, you're next...your most embarassing moment.." I have a few embarassing moments. There's the one I tell, the one I only tell shrinks and the one I have never told anybody. I didn't feel like sharing. "I'm kind of embarassed because when I came in , I only brought myself, and all I have to wear every day are these green pajamas. I'm The Crazy Jolly Green Giant Lady!"
Lenny had come in approximately 20 hours ago. "All I have is this tie-dye t-shirt! I'm crazy Grateful Dead Guy wearin' hospital slippers!" I was beginning to notice Lenny.
Sandy said, "I have some sweats you can borrow so you can wash those. Come to my room after group and we'll find ya somethin'."
Now, I have this thing...about being helped. I usually try to avoid it. If somebody wants to help me I make it very hard for them. If you offer me help, I will not readily accept it. You will have to force the help on me. Sandy was a mother and had that keen intuition I wish I could cultivate.
After group, I slipped into my room, hoping Sandy would forget about her offer. I was also hoping she would force the help on me because with all the medication they were giving me, I had hella BO. I had spent the day with my arms clamped to my sides lest I offend. The lunch cart was late. I stayed in my room as long as I could and then went to the dining area. Sandy was no airhead. "Hey! You didn't come to my room. After lunch, we'll get ya somethin' to change into." Sure enough, when lunch was over, Sandy followed me to my room. "Here, come here, let's see what I have for you." I followed her. At this point, resistance was futile. She handed me some grey sweatpants and a NASCAR T-shirt. I wanted to laugh so badly. If they could see me now...in my NASCAR T-shirt. I haven't addressed this in my blog as yet, but I am ...a clothing snob. I've spent most of my life working in high-end retail establishments. Although I could rarely afford many of the items I sold or helped sell in one way or another, I have cultivated a certain aesthetic appreciation. I thought of any number of people I know coming into the hospital, seeing me in a NASCAR T-shirt and being even more alarmed or worried about me than they would normally be under the same circumstances. "Where did she get those clothes? She would never be caught dead in those clothes! Do you think it's drugs? Is she on drugs? Why else would she be in those clothes? She is not even herself! Dear Lord, I hope they can help her!"
I put on Sandy's clothes and was pleasantly comfortable. Free, even. They were huge! I had forgotten that inexpensive clothes are way bigger than more costly ones. The pants softly billowed around me. The shirt touched my shoulders and arms and hung nearly to my knees. Summer was on to something. This was great. I felt...naked.

cesspool vortex

2006-01-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

Henry's vet looks like Sean Penn. I mentioned this to Siobhan, a fellow member of the Palookaville Mental Health Alliance Walking Team 2006. We hold practice at the Palookaville Athletic Complex, a veritable social vortex. Dr. SeanPenn happened to be there, playing foosball. We went on to discuss the status of his marriage, his wife's unfortunate fashion choices and details of his almost-extra marital affair with a deaf Tantric sex instructor.
"Don't you think it's weird that he doesn't know either of our names, but we know all this crazy shit about him?" Siobhan asked.
"No, because if anybody achieves a modicum of success in this economically devastated cesspool, everybody knows them and talks much smack about them. Everybody gossips about the same people in this town; The SeanPenns, The Snidelys, The Acorns, the Pantagliones, and the Popalopagus'." Four of the five names mentioned have store-front businesses in Palookaville.
Siobhan looked puzzled. "Who's the Pantagliones?" The "Pants" family doesn't have a store front business, therefore they were the only family name she didn't recognize. Siobhan is also younger and from another town.
"Tony Pantaglione was the great white hope of Palookaville back in the late seventies/early eighties. He was the 1981 Mr. Foosball Honoree. He made it to the pros." I explained.
Foosball is huge in our state. During the mid-seventies, the factories in our town started to shut down. Palookaville was beginning a slow descent into the socio-economic polarization familiar to most resort/bedrom communities in the Midwest. The unemployment rate was high. Spirits were broken. Then, from the doom, emerged Tony Pantaglione, Foosball God. His picture graced the cover of the Palookaville Times every night. My father wouold complain, "They should re-name this rag the Tony Pantaglione Times! The world could be blowing up and all we get is news about Pantaglione!" He was written up in Foosball Illustrated. He was destined to be a star. He was still in high school. Foosball became so popular in our town that nearly every house had a table. My brothers would play daily. I would watch and cheer for whoever I liked that day. "I'm (foosball legend) Jack Briggs!" Steve would boast. "I'm (the first pro foosball player) Gary Pfeil!"
My brother Jeff, younger and not so bright, would say, "I'm Tony Pantaglione!"
There are many rumours about Tony Pants and his family. Some say his dad made him train for ten hours a day. Others say his dad made him play with a blindfold on or with one hand tied behind his back. Then, there's the rumour; Tony's dad, Big Tony was a man to be reckoned with. They say that he himself once stood on the cusp of foosball greatness. That's why Tony's foosball career was so important to him. That's why he pushed Tony so hard. When Tony's foosball talent reached the media, the Pants family was contacted by none other than the godfather of foosball, E. Lee Peppard. Peppard was ready to take Tony to the big time, the show. Big Tony met with Peppard at his estate to duck hunt and talk about Tony's future in foosball. With Peppard as his mentor, the sky would be the limit. People speculated about the Olympic foosball team. There were whispers about a line of Tony Pantaglione Foosball tables and accessories. Peppard told Big Tony about his plans to ease Tony into the spotlight slowly. He didn't want to risk overexposure. He wanted to ensure that Tony was ready for the pro circuit, then introduce him at the peak of his performance and make sure Tony's career had longevity. Peppard had seen many a small town foosball wonder hit the big time too fast and burn out. Big Tony was having none of it. He wanted Tony on the circuit immediately. He would hear none of Peppard's logic. Peppard had been warned of Big Tony's temperament and demeanor. If he felt he was being shortchanged, Big Tony was fond of pointing to his large forehead (some call it an eighthead) and asking, "Does it say 'FUCK ME' across here?" Peppard was ready. He loaded the hunting gear back into the Jeep and drove Big Tony back to his car without a word. Tony went on to experience success with foosball, playing the European tournaments and breaking into the pro circuit here for a short time before being sidelined with carpal tunnel. There's always the question of "What if...?" Tony is still the most successful athlete to come out of Palookaville. The rumours continue. They say he's an alcoholic, a sex addict, bankrupt. Occasionally, there's a sighting. At the diner or the mall, you'll look over and see Palookaville's Great White Hope ambling out, moving awkwardly with his new titanium elbow replacements.

Hi-diddly-ho!

2006-01-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

Bob was a unit counselor that worked the 3-11 shift. Ashley Burroughs, Pearson and I called him Ned Flanders because not only did he resemble him, he was perpetually cheery, never displayed any anger, agitation or frustration, and was a graduate of the same faith based University that Summer attended. "How-diddly-do-ya?" Ashley would announce as Bob came in to the Group Room. Bob's groups were extremely upbeat. For the last group of the day, he would open a locked closet and remove a chunk of plastic molded to look like logs. He would sit it on a table in the middle of the room with our chairs in a circle around it. When plugged in, it glowed like a campfire. He told us his "fireplace" had been with him since college when he would try to lure co-eds back to his room. I strongly suspect Bob is a real 40 year old virgin. He grew up in the same New Jersey town as Brooke Shields. He says she is very tall with large features, the largest of which are her hands. He called them "man hands." Instead of some sappy carey-sharey teary-eyed meeting, Bob liked to play "Scruples." Everybody would be given a stack of cards with questions such as, "You find a large sum of money. Nobody would ever know you had found it and it could never be traced back to you. Do you keep it?"
Summer had been very accommodating, almost maternal to me; showing me the ropes of the unit, even finding saline solution for my dry contacts. She knew I didn't have any friends in the area and asked me if I would like to have coffee with her after we got out. The first time I heard her running nude story, I laughed for the first time in what seemed like forever. Scruples would prove unkind to our fledging friendship. That's because Summer was another fundamentalist charismatic Bible thumpin' wackjob. Scruples revealed me to be the opinionated left-leaning centrist that I am.
"Summer!" Bob would say and pause dramatically. "Your teenage daughter comes to you and asks if she may start taking the birth control pill. What do you do?"
"Well, Bob, that's a hard one. I am a Christian. My faith tells me sex before marriage is a sin, so I would have to tell her that I could not condone that kind of relationship and encourage her very strongly to wait." Summer fidgeted alot when she talked. She jiggled her leg, shuffled her Scruples cards, pushed up her glasses, smoothed back her hair, etc. She was whip skinny and only ate the write in salads for lunch and the write in soup for dinner. Breakfast was the fruit plate. Every day of her stay, it was the same. She never wavered. One morning she approached me in the hallway, all worried and anxious. "Dr. Samia has added another medication for me. It's called Remeron. have you heard of it?"
"Yeah, I took it for a while. It's number one side effect is weight gain. I stopped it right away."
Her eyes bugged out behind her glasses and she jutted out her chin. She looked genuinely pissed. "I thought so! I am not taking it! If I so much as gain an ounce, that's it! Why do you think they would give me that?" She looked narrow-eyed and suspicious.
"Well...I think they probably wanted you to try an anti-depressant with a sleep benefit. Do you have problems sleeping?" She nodded. "That's probably it. Maybe they thought because you're a thin person, the weight gain wouldn't be an issue for you."
"Yeah, that's probably it. You're right. I'm still gonna watchit, though." She went back to her room.
Bob was looking at me. "Kathy, how do you feel about that?" He had a mischevious smile on his face. He was enjoying this discourse. Maybe he wasn't exactly like Ned Flanders.
"I feel Summer wants to be a young grandmother."

bathed in the blood of the lamb

2006-01-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

"If I lost my husband tomorrow, I could go on. Because as much as I love my husband, Katherine, and I do, Lord knows how I love Robert, I love God more!" I was looking at this little twig of a girl. She was all earnestness and sincerity. I wondered how they were taught this stuff. Was it like a training seminar? Maybe they went to church on Sunday and sat at desks and took notes about how to seize any possible opportunity to push the agenda. Her features were prominent; chin, cheekbones, nose, forehead. Her head was large on her tiny twiggy body. She was Southern. I knew it before I ever heard her speak, or asked her where she was from. Her features were Southern. I know that sounds impossible to non-Southerners, but we can spot each other. There are certain chin and cheekbone combinations, certain nose shapes, hair textures and body types that tip off a Southern person. There are also style cues. A Southern person has a tendency to wear a little more jewelry than others. There are certain makeup palettes in combination with hairstyles and haircolors that will tip off a native Southerner. A native of Dixie wears a strange mix of designer labels, mall wear and Wal-mart. For example, Summer was wearing the latest Pumas, Abercrombie and Fitch jeans, a Tiffany's pendant, a Zale's platinum wedding set and an oversize t-shirt straight out of one of those plastic bag multi-packs from the men's "Fruit of the Loom" display. She looked all of 13 years old with her glasses, braces and scrubbed face. She was actually 29 and a mother of two little girls, Ashley and Caitlin. She had met her husband at church, of course. She was a graduate student at a local faith based university. She was on the unit for taking an overdose of infant tranquilizers(?), carving "SLUT" into her arm and running through her upper middle class neighborhood completely nude.
Summer told us she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She had been raped repeatedly throughout her childhood by a mysterious person she wouldn't identify. She told us her parents didn't believe her. She claimed to have started to have flashbacks of the abuse when her oldest child turned five, the age Summer was when the alleged abuse began.
She was on the unit when I arrived. She was extremely extroverted and talkative. At that time, Dave was the only man on the unit. Summer was very affectionate to Dave. She would ask him if he'd like a hug, and then oblige full-on; the length of her body smack up against him with her head tucked under his chin, the side of her face semi-buried in his Hawaiian print polo shirt. She'd sit next to him on the couch with her leg firmly pressed against his, place her hand on his arm for emphasis as she spoke, etc. Now, in his day, I am sure Dave pulled quite a bit of tail. From the back, Dave still retained an outline of a once athletic physique. When he turned around he looked about 7 months pregnant. He had a modified graying mullet and a mustache that was probably hot in '84. The heroin and alcohol had ravaged his face. His nose was somewhat bulbous and inflamed and he had no teeth. None. He had been down for so long that his face was permanently droopy. His shoulders were covered in dandruff flakes. This is not a man one is eager to get all hugged up with.
She delighted in telling each new patient and any unit employee who hadn't heard about running nude through her neighborhood. She always concluded, "Don't you think if somebody was running nude through your neighborhood and was detained by police and firemen, that you or somebody would have the decency to cover them with a coat or blanket? Nobody covered me! Half the neighborhood came out of their houses to see what the commotion was about. Not one person thought to bring me a blanket, a robe, a towel...anything!"
Summer's mother came up during visiting hours to bring her a few necessities. Her mother was an aging pageant perfect platinum blonde with a deep tan. Her make-up was stage ready. Her hair was pure Texas anchorwoman. It could have withstood Katrina. Had only the New Orleans levees been fortified with as much fixative as that coif. She was wearing Escada Sport from head to ankle; all chocolate brown and skin tight. Her shoes were a moderately priced trouser boot with a high, but sturdy heel(southern style cue). Her stomach was as flat as a board and her breasts were closer to her chin than her navel. She wore yellow gold (another style tip-off) in abundance. The diamond in her engagement ring was at least two carats and flashed from across the room. The "few necessities" she brought filled an entire suitcase and a large shopping bag. They were mostly grooming products and hair styling implements; hairdryer, flat iron, curling iron, large round brush, all manner of hairsprays, mousses, gels, etc. There was a bottle of perfume, a large makeup case with a portable lighted mirror and expensive bath products. All of these items were in glass or contained glass (the makeup case's mirror), so they were strictly prohibited. Many of the implements were nixed due to their electrical cords. Some of the products were refused due to their contents. Anything containing alcohol or chemicals that could be huffed was not allowed. Of all the items brought in by Summer's beauty pageant veteran mother, very few passed inspection. Summer and her mother were very put out by the staff's refusal. Every time the unit nurse handed an item back to the mother and said, "No." Summer and her mother would protest. "You mean I can't have my hair dryer?... to dry my hair?... really?...Gosh!" Her mother would echo her, "...A hair dryer?...to dry her hair?...No?...My Goodness!" I think they thought if they stated the intended purpose of the item, the nurse would relent and let them have it, "Oh, you mean a hairdryer is for drying your hair? All this time the administration thought it was used solely for the purpose of committing suicide with the cord. Now that you've cleared that up for us, by all means, take it in. And the small firearm as well, it's alright. Everybody needs protection."

great fatigue

2006-01-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

I am currently experiencing a level of exhaustion that renders me unable to think of anything to write.
I am certain I am neglecting my dog and he will suffer emotional trauma that will lead to behavioral problems.
My kitchen faucet is producing the weakest little trickle of water imaginable, so dish washing is out of the question. If the dishes can't be cleaned, nothing else should, right?
If I don't do laundry today, I will have to squeeze into real clothes tomorrow instead of sweats. I have worn sweats since November. I wear them in public, to the doctor's office...everywhere. I rarely put on makeup. I have a moment of embarassment about my appearance before leaving the house or getting out of my car, but then decide that I shouldn't care. Who the hell am I? Gwenyth Paltrow? Who the hell's gonna see me? Fellow residents of Palookaville. Who cares?
I am going back to bed.
This is how my thoughts go. In a loop tape. Still I can't seem to motivate to get anything done.
I am going back to bed.
Another year.

chemical pressure

2005-12-30T18:36:00.000-08:00

"What did you do over the holiday?" asked Barden D. Arnette, MD. Even his name was an SNL parody of a psychiatrist's name.
I opened my mouth to answer,"...." and was interrupted.
"What I mean is what did you do to pass the time? Did you do anything enjoyable?" He was doing Joaquin doing Cash again.
I opened my mouth to answer, "...." and was interrupted again.
"Visit with friends or family, things of that nature?"His head was turned to his left. His chin was tilted upward. He was looking at me from the side, although his body was facing me. I wonder if he has Tourette's?
I waited. He looked up from his legal pad. He was dressed a little better today. Still a little strange for our town of Palookaville, home of the Fighting Chickens (Go you Chickens! Bawk! Bawk!), but better, nonetheless. He raised his eyebrows as if waiting for me to answer.
I opened my mouth, "....Well, I..." and he cut me off again.
"I understand you don't have many friends or family, so if you didn't visit with anyone, that's ok, but what did you do instead?"
I jumped at my chance, "Itookmydogtothedogpark!" and then I teared up.
Taking my dog to the Bark Park was the best experience of my holiday. A medical professional had just reminded me that I don't have many friends or family. I was tired of sitting in badly furnished rooms with strange people, telling them things I don't tell the few people I hold close to me. I was tired of trying to figure out why I can't seem to function like a regular person. I was tired of having no meaningful connections. I want a family. I just don't want the one I've got. I can't find anybody to love me. I have revised(translated; lowered) my standards. I have made accommodations. I have tried not to be judgmental or picky. Still; nothing, nobody. I am aging fast and soon it may be too late. I have lived with this mood/ neurological issue/mental illness for my entire life. I have been trying to find some relief for eight years. Besides, I found his communication style to be really freakin' irritating.
"MmmmHmmmm," he was writing on the legal pad,"What else?" now he turned his head abruptly to the right, tilted the chin up toward the ceiling and looked at me from the opposite side of his head.
"Nothing else. That was the enjoyable part. That's it." I was wiping my nose with my hand. A psychiatrist's office with no visible box of tissues, go figure.
"I see you brought back the mood chart." he extended his hand for it. He had given me a mood chart at the last appointment. It was a table made up of 3 main sections; Treatments, Daily Notes and Mood. Within the Treatment section, there were 8 columns with different psychotropics listed along with a "verbal therapy" column and some blank columns to fill in meds not listed. The Daily Notes section was just blank horizontal lines.The Mood section was disected into three subsections; "Depressed", "WNL" and "Elevated". Under "Depressed", there were six columns, headed Irritability, Anxiety, Hours Slept Last Night, Severe, Mod, Mild. Under the mysterious "WNL" column, it says "Mood Not Definitely Elevated or Depressed. No Symptoms." Underneath in smaller print it says, "Circle date to indicate menses." Each row in this column had a subsequent number. The "Elevated" section was made up of four columns titled, Mild, Mod, Severe and my personal favorite, Psychotic Symptoms, and below it in smaller print, Strange Ideas, Hallucinations. I handed it to him and he looked it over.
"You've done a very good job with this." he stated. "Did you read the information I gave to you?"
At the last appointment, he also gave me some reading materials about anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder. I had read them and highlighted the information that applied to me.
"Yes." I started to hand the materials back to him.
"No, no, no!" he made a waving gesture with his right hand, "Those are for you! I don't want them back!" You would have thought I was trying to return borrowed underwear.
"I thought you may want to look at them..." I started to explain.
He cut me off, "Oh, no..no, I don't need them. Those are for you. They contain very valuable information. If you want to throw them away, you certainly may, but they are a good resource for you."
"I understand, but I read them and made note of what symptoms seem to apply to me, I thought you may want to see them." I was able to complete the sentence because he had picked up a pen from his desk and was studying it intently while nodding.
"So...tell me...what you thought." He was making a "round and round" gesture with his right hand, a "keep it coming" sort of gesture that I have seen people use to help drivers back into tight spaces.
"...About...?" I was staring at him.
"The reading, the information, what did you think about it?" his head was tilted far to the left and with his right hand, he was placing the pen against his lips. He is such a freak.
"Well, as I said, I read it and highlighted the parts that seemed relevant to me." I opened the first page of the anxiety booklet. "Would you like for me to read those parts to you?"
"No! No! Why don't you tell me what you think, based on the reading, I mean what do you think...sticks?" His head was turned to the right and he was still swiping the pen across his lips with his right hand while holding the legal pad in his left.
"...Sticks...?" I was so irritated at his point, I wasn't hiding my facial expression, which must have been a cross between, What? and What the hell?
"Uh, meaning, which description do you think best describes what's happening with you?"Pen to lips. Swipe Across. Pen to lips. Swipe Across.
Ah, I see. Ol' Barden wanted me to diagnose myself. Nope. He was going to have to work for this one. "I don't think I fall neatly into one category. Many of the symptoms in both booklets seemed to apply to me. I have some of the symptoms of OCD. I have some of the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. Some of the elevated mood symptoms of bipolar disorder apply at times, most of the depressive symptoms apply all the time..."
He pointed the pen toward me. "You didn't tell me about OCD symptoms at the last appointment."
"I hadn't read this information prior to the last appointment." Did he really think we could have covered every facet of my mental state in one setting?
"You can't have generalized anxiety disorder and ODC." He stated. I find this hard to believe. The human mind is vast, complex and multi-faceted. How could he say something so absolute?
"I didn't say I had either." I closed the booklets and set them aside. "I said that some of the symptoms for each applied to me. I am in no position to say I have anything. I can hardly diagnose myself. I read the materials and took note of what applied to me."
I was exasperated. I don't know why I was allowing this situation to piss me off so much. I just felt so tired. I teared up again.
"I know we have touched on some difficult subjects. I think we may have to do some psychological testing. I am surprised that you haven't completed any tests before. Given your rather chaotic upbringing, I am sure you have some personality issues. I don't see how you couldn't...I will discuss this with Dr. Samson, see what he thinks, and then there is the issue of your insurance. Some insurance won't pay for testing. We can look into that. Now, what I want to know is...if you thought you may want to act on your suicidal impulses, would you tell somebody? Would you go to the hospital?" he had slid his chair to the farthest point away from his desk. His right shoulder was grazing the wall. He was still pointing at me with the pen.
"I don't feel suicidal right now. I am not in danger of acting on any impulses." I felt so exhausted, I wanted to fall on the floor. I probably looked suicidal. I couldn't stop crying. I gathered my things to leave. Ol' Barden stood to walk me out. He turned suddenly and was obtrusively in my personal space. He extend his palm with his fingers splayed out and touched my upper arm. Perhaps this is how they show concern on his home planet, Nerdtron. "Are you sure you're not going to leave here and do anything stupid?" This was so ridiculous I started to laugh. As I was already crying, the laughing looked like uncontrollable sobs. I had to get control of myself or this freak would admit me to the local inpatient unit.
"No!...Yes!...I mean, I am not going to do 'anything stupid'." I pictured my self pulling a ski mask over my face and robbing the GasNSip, yelling, 'Everybody on the floor! Don't make me do anything stupid!' this made me laugh again.
"I have a dog. Who would take care of my dog?" I asked him.

catalyst

2005-12-29T09:50:00.000-08:00

Annoying John was ranting. He had ranted through Community Group. He was well on his way to ranting through the second group meeting of the day. "Dese people in here are ignorant! I mean, dat's just not right! Dat's all we got in here! Dat's like havin' five kids, OK? And den you tellin' tree of dem kids dat dey can have ice cream. And den tell da udder two dat dey can't have none. Dat's not fair! Dat's my opinion and I want my opinion to be spoke! I mean, it don't make no kinda sense!"
Sweet little Mae Ling was looking at John intently, nodding. At her first opportunity, she spoke. "John, I understand how you feel, but rules are rules. After a lot of careful consideration, the staff and administration decided that providing community cigarettes was becoming too burdensome. It's also in conflict with our mission here at County Central; we shouldn't be encouraging the habit. We don't think it is unreasonabl....."
John cut her off, "But you guys don't unnerstand what it's like for us. For da people dat's addicted to alcohaw, we can't get no alcohaw. For da people dat's addicted to gettin' high, we..uh..dey can't get no weed. Dat's all we got is our cigarettes, ya know!?!" And da nuther ting is, why didn't dey discuss dis wiff us? If we're da ones dat's gotta be in here, dey shoulda axed us what we taught a dis, so we could stand up fer what we believe in! Cuz, me...I'm gonna stand up fer what I tink is right! I'm gonna speak up...!"
I looked over at the new girl, Jenna. She was 18, a high school senior, straight A student, cheerleader, kind, respectful and mannerly. She was a perfectionist with generalized anxiety disorder and she had tried to kill herself three days ago. She had all the potential in the world. Next to her sat Christopher, 16. Another smart articulate friendly generous kid with great manners, musical talent and an easy likeable disposition. A model son or little brother. His family brought him in after they found his journal full of suicidal ideation. His entire life was ahead of him. These two kids had already contributed more to the world than John would ever. They were here for real problems.
One of the nurses on the unit had started to bring in a pack of cigarettes to have on hand if one of the smokers was temporarily out. The understanding was you could have a "unit cigarette" until you could arrange for a visitor to bring you some. John and Angela had smuggled in packs via Angela's niece. All patient cigarettes were supposed to be kept behind the counter to deter smoking in patient rooms. They were keeping theirs hidden on their persons and smoking them in the bathrooms between official "smoke breaks." When the time came for official smoke breaks, John and Angela would ask if they could have unit cigarettes. John had paid Angela's niece for his smuggled cigarettes with money stolen from another patient. The decision to stop bringing in unit cigarettes had been announced in Community Group. Since John had smuggled cigarettes on his person, he was basically ranting because he could no longer take advantage of free cigarettes. Vile Scumbag.
Mae Ling was fresh out of grad school. She had probably grown up in a respectful family, in a decent neighborhood, and went to a school of mostly middle and upper middle class kids. Her education had not prepared her for a person like John. He did not recognize normal social cues. Her diplomatic and respectful mores were lost on this street vermin.I had grown up around the country, but had spent a considerable amount of time in a town outside of Gary, Indiana. After my father split, my mother and I resided in a government-subsidized housing development (translated; the projects, the jets, the pj's). When forced to, I could speak John's language.

"DUDE!" I yelled in his face and cut him off midsentence. The element of surprise is tantamount to physical domination when dealing with these people. "ENOUGH! WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE DAMN CIGARETTES! THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE WITH REAL PROBLEMS! YOU HAVE DOMINATED TWO GROUPS WITH THIS BULLSHIT! THAT'S ENOUGH ALREADY!" Cursing is also an important tactic. It shows just enough irreverance to the authority figure present to suggest you may resort to physical violence if necessary. I had said very little in groups until this point. I participated if called upon. I didn't volunteer to share. Gentle Karen was making her way to the door as was Jenna and Roxanne. Ashley Burroughs, as I had taken to calling her because of her affinity for Augusten Burroughs, stayed by my side. As a veteran of Juvey (juvenile detention center), Ashley had seen her share of shit fly. No violence John could inflict could ever compare to fighting a black girl, something Ashley and I had in common. John was momentarily silent, then slid forward in his seat and pointed in my face,"I'LL SAY WHAT I WANT AN' IF YOU DOAN LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARIN' YOU CAN LEAVE!"
"NO, YOU NEED TO LEAVE. YOU HAVE DISRUPTED GROUP LONG ENOUGH. YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ANYBODY ELSE'S PROBLEMS. CIGARETTES ARE NOT IMPORTANT TO THE REST OF THE GROUP. THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE THAT ARE ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN THEIR HEALTH AND TRYING TO GET BETTER." I leaned forward, but didn't scoot to the edge of my seat because my knees would have touched his.
"John, Please leave." Mae Ling spoke while crossing the room to the Security phone.
"I AIN"T LEAVIN'! AX HER TA LEAVE! SHE STARTED RUNNIN' HER MOUTH! SHE'S THE ONE NEEDS TA LEAVE!" John was flailing his arms about. A droplet of saliva flew from his mouth to the floor.
"John, I am asking you to leave the room immediately, or you will be escorted out." Mae Ling was speaking calmly but her eyes were betraying her. This was probably her first "situation."
She spoke into the white old school phone receiver and hung up.
"Jo-ohn, just shu-ut up a-and lea-eave. You're so-o stu-upid." That was my little buddy, Ashley.
John rose to leave as the security guy appeared in the doorway. "I DOAN KNOW WHY YOU GOTTA RUN YOUR MOUTH. YOU FAT HO!" He stood over me for a second and raised his fist. I didn't flinch. "I wish you would hit me, street trash." I hissed at him through my teeth so Mae Ling wouldn't hear me. Ashley looked at me, alarmed. The security guard yelled, "HEY! DON'T DO IT!" John lowered his hand and walked out of the room, yelling insults and profanities with the security guard on his heels.
"You're no-ot fa-at. And you're no-ot a ho-o." said Ashley.
Thanks, kid.

now for something completely different...

2005-12-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

Katie's back hurt. And she had to pee, again. She had been up six times in the night. She lay watching the hand on the beautiful antique clock on the beautiful nightstand next to the beautiful custom made bed in the guest wing of a huge compound in L.A. In two minutes, at 4:58 a.m., she would be summoned by the intercom system. (During her first week, she thought she would be a diligent little employee and arrive early without being summoned. As she opened the fake door, he shouted at her. She ran back to her room in tears. She didn't see anybody else but him, but she was certain he wasn't alone. His assistant came in later and diplomatically explained she was never to come without being signaled first) She would make her way to the master suite, where she would take her place beside him in bed. There she would lay motionless for several minutes until the day staff would start to arrive. As the maid opened the door, they would be "emerging" from the bed. The maid would look alarmed, apologize profusely, and back out the door with her eyes lowered. He would flash the multi-million dollar veneers and say, "That's OK, Esperanza! Buenos Dias! Give us a few minutes!" Katie would smile her famous sheepish smile. With Esperanza's footsteps receding down the hall, he reminds her, "The morning briefing starts in five. See you in the office." Katie would make her way back to the lavish guest quarters via a hallway behind his shoe closet. The staff was only required to clean and service the guest quarters upon request. They would not know she was actually residing there unless they were especially hypervigilant. The night staff (she'd secretly dubbed them the "chosen ones" due to how close they were to him and how much information they were privy to. A few members of this "inner circle" were more familiar with the details of her agreement than she would ever be.) made sure the articles in the "hers" bathroom were in enough disarray to look used. The security staff inner circle members had them under such close surveillance that any perceived breach would be handled immediately. She would hurriedly pee, brush her teeth and hope she wouldn't have morning sickness. Being tardy to the morning briefing was grounds for a fine. Wednesday's bout of diarrhea cost her 50 grand. Over the initial 9 months of the contract, the fines had accumulated to a staggering amount. There was the initial 200 grand penalty for those unfortunate pictures of her in the Buddy Holly style glasses with the inflamed skin around her mouth. The tabloids were wild with speculation about the redness and swelling. One featured a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon giving his expert opinion that it was a rare type of Herpes. Actually, the contract required removal of all body hair by laser treatments, the redness and swelling were common side effects. This was a stipulation he had required of all three. Of all of his obsessive compulsive stipulations and requirements, this was the one that had ended the first arrangement. The first wife just couldn't tolerate the laser treatments. She still has visible scars that prohibit her from showing much skin. It put quite a damper on her fledgling film career. Instead of catapulting her from virtual obscurity, as his camp had promised, it relegated her to wholesome matronly roles which take you no where fast in the industry. In her settlement, she and her legal team used this to their advantage. The retired judge who heard the case was sympathetic and granted her the full amount of the contract despite the fact that she was unable to fulfill the obligations. He was enraged and had to be calmed down by the spiritual advisors that remain available to him around the clock. Katie had been fined for each wardrobe faux-pas, each grimace or awkward expression, and any body language that could be misconstrued. The Good Morning America interview alone set her back close to one million dollars. She would still make enough money to ensure the next three generations of her offspring and those of her siblings would not have to struggle financially. While perched on the toilet seat, she allowed herself to think of Chris. The funny little things they used to say and do. The sex, especially in the beginning, when it was incredible and to be out of bed was to be in pain. There were things she missed about a real relationship, but she reminded herself that those things wouldn't bring generational wealth. Besides, if Chris hadn't cheated on her she wouldn't be in this situation. The call had come at one of the worst times she had ever experienced in her life. The reports about the state of her car and the cleaning crew he had dispatched to her house were true, but they didn't stop there. She had cancelled her cleaning services weeks before. She was only communicating with her manager and her immediate family from her bed. After she signed the contract, the "sweep" began. Her car was cleaned and promptly donated to charity. Her house was thoroughly cleaned to his specifications and anything not to his liking was put into storage or disposed of. Anything. That would include family photos that were not pleasing to his eye. Wardrobe staples like her favorite running gear and comfy sweats were strictly prohibited in the new quest to glamorize and sophisticate her. Her appointments with her doctors stopped abruptly, along with her antidepressant medication. His belief system prohibited the use of most drugs and was vehemently anti-psychology. Her new diet started immediately after a two week fast and enzymatic whole body cleanse including her lymphatic system. This process was overseen by a nutritionist from the Center. Literally. The nutritionist would stand over the meals as they were weighed and prepared. The nutritionist would stand over the toilet after Katie completed a bowel movement to note the color, texture and length as indication of how the regime was proceeding. He was briefed about all of these things daily. The egg donor had already been found and was undergoing the hormonal treatments. She was an eighteen year old girl with strikingly symmetrical features and stunning musculature who had been strictly brought up in the church lifestyle. She had consumed only minute amounts of processed and non-organic foods. Regular drug testing confirmed she had never partaken in so much as an aspirin. When he had insisted upon the spinal fluid test for LSD, the church leaders had appealed to him for leniency, especially in light of the absence of any "lighter" drug use, but he was undeterred and demanded it. Under the staggering sum of money being offered to the church and the family, the girl relented and subjected herself to it. Of course it came back negative. Katie was lucky that the in-vitro process had gone so smoothly and worked on the first try. The second contracted wife had tried for 6 years, every three months with no success. The last three years, he had kept her on because his adopted children were quite fond of her. She had surprised him at the end and fought for custodial rights. This retired judge had been sympathetic based on interviews he'd had with the children (despite his protests and much to his dismay) and granted her a certain amount of time each year, still leaning favorably toward his convenience. Katie forgot herself for a minute and thought about going to the grocery store. She still did this all time, momentarily forgetting that any normalcy she'd had prior was gone for now. As she took her seat for the morning briefing to be followed by hair, make up and wardrobe ( every style, shade of lipgloss and even undergarment pre-approved by him or a representative), Katie took heart. The recent photos of the second wife enjoying elements of mundane and ordinary life gave her hope. It'll be just a couple more years and she would be free.

fiendishness

2005-12-26T11:46:00.000-08:00

The naked guy from the intake room turned out to be a homeless epileptic alcoholic guy named John. He was a hard core street dude. His top teeth were missing or decayed. He had a considerable underbite that gave him the appearance of a pirhana with fetal alcohol syndrome. He looked like the stereotypical carny at the local county fair, manning the tilt-a-whirl under the influence of crystal meth and Jack Daniels. It was clear right away that John had no interest in his health. He used the hospital like a spa or resort; for a respite from the street. The entire staff knew him. With the appearance of John, there came a renewed vigilance for the unit rules. Every morning after Personal Care Time (7-8) and Breakfast (8-9) there was Community Group. This was the time for residents to express concerns about conditions(The shower in our room is freezing cold), ask for clarification of policies and procedures(Can my visitors bring me food?), be reminded of unit rules (You must always wear socks or slippers), and set a goal for the day( I would like to complete my written patient history/autobiography for review by my doctor and counselor). In the days Before John (hereafter referred to as BJ) the counselor in charge of Community Group would refer to the written rules posted on the wall and say, "The Community Rules are posted. They should have been reviewed with you upon intake. If you are not familiar with the Community Rules, please take a moment to review them. If you have any questions about the rules, please ask any member of the unit staff and we will be happy to go over them with you." In the days After John (hereafter referred to as AJ), the staff would carefully and painstakingly read and give examples of each rule. They were especially hyper-vigilant in their explanations of Rule #4 (Patients are allowed to be in the rooms to which they are assigned. Patients are not allowed to be in any other room to which they are not assigned. Patients are not allowed to "visit" or socialize in other patients' rooms.), Rule #5(Patients are not allowed to have physical contact. Touching is prohibited.), and an entirely different poster dedicated to all of the rules and regulations pertaining to smoking was read to us verbatim and elaborated upon ad nauseum.
"Wait...Smoking?" you say. "I thought you were in a hospital; a health facility; a facility that should be promoting health; meaning discouragement of smoking."
County Central was one of the last units in the state that still maintained a smoking facility for in-patients on the Psych Unit. BJ, patients were allowed to co-ed smoke; males and females could use the facility together. AJ, the sexes were segregated, which caused a near riot due to one Ashley, the 18 year old "emo" cutter briefly referred to in the previous entry, "me! me!" It seems that smoking in the facility gave some of the male patients the only close proximity they would ever have to the unit ingenue. They were not pleased. Despite her penchant for mismatched thrift clothes (combos of which she wore without washing for days on end) and covering her face with her hair (which was luxuriously thick and blonde and hung to her waist), Ashley was gorgeous. She could have been a model or actress. The best way to describe her would be a blonde, light green-eyed Helena Christensen. She occupied the room with Pearson and I and can only be described as a force. She was on a veritable cocktail of psych meds and made it her mission to be put on more. She spoke in slow motion with a trace of a California accent. "He-ey guy-uys, you-ou know-ow wha-at? I-I'm go-nna te-ell the do-octor that I-I felt be-etter whe-en I-I was on Zo-oloft. I-I be-et he gi-ives i-it to me-e." Sure enough, she would come back from her daily visit with her Psychiatrist with a 'script for her new drug du jour. Ashley was also a non-stop laugh riot. Mid-conversation, she would stand up, wrap her tie-dyed t-shirt around her head, and announce,"Le-et's have a ra-ave!" She would turn the bathroom light on and off rapidly, creating a strobe effect and jump up and down, shaking her ass while imitating a pulsing electronica song, human beat-box style. Pearson and I would be convulsing with laughter in our beds. She aspired to be a writer in the style of Augusten Burroughs. She showed me her journal full of stream-of-consciousness style poetry. She had real potential. When she found out I came to the hospital with no belongings and had nobody to bring any to me, she insisted I use her toiletries instead of the nasty hospital-provided ones. During group, we were somewhat on edge in anticipation of what Ashley might say or do. Once, when asked what she was thankful for, Ashley replied in a faux Georgia accent, "My beautiful ass, my big rack and my gorgeous face!" I will probably never have children, but if I did, I would want a daughter just like Ashley(minus the criminal record). I often think of her and hope she is taking care of herself; not throwing her life away on drugs and boys and her generation's strange brand of trisexuality.
John proved to be an annoyance and a pariah. He knew no boundaries. He would approach the visitors of other patients and ask for favors, such as, "If you're coming up here tomorrow, could you bring me some cigarettes?" This was a blatant violation of the smoking as well as the unit rules. In fact, most of his free time was spent in pursuit of cigarettes. He was like a man obsessed.
Decaffinated coffee was provided in a thermal carafe in the dining area. Patients were allowed to partake as they wished. John drank cup after cup and would ask any unit employee who happened by, "Hey, we're out of coffee here, D'ya think you could get us some more?" as if he was a patron of a diner and these over-burdened degreed mental health professionals were his waitstaff. Toward the end of his stay, we discovered he was leaving group sessions under the guise of getting more coffee or using the restroom, waiting until the counter staff was not looking and sneaking into patient rooms to steal. I knew something in my mind was shifting when I was capable of wanting to punch this asshole in the face.
"How do you feel?" asked gentle Karen.
"Something's going on, my meds must be kickin' in 'cause that fucker's startin' to piss me off." I nodded toward John who was deep in some kind of untoward conversation with Angela. There was something going on with John and Angela's visitors. I had a feeling they were bringing in more than cigarettes for John.
To be continued.

pen-sive

2005-12-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Unit Director,

As a patient on the Crisis Stabilization Unit, I feel you should be made aware of the subject matter of a recent Patient Education Group, conducted by Unit employee, Mimi.
The topic of the discussion as introduced by Mimi was "Sexuality." What ensued was a largely Judeo-Christian influenced plea for abstinence from casual sexual encounters as well as masturbation. During the discussion, the patients were regaled with tales of Mimi's failed marriage. We were also made privy to Mimi's struggles with resisting the temptation to masturbate as well as how long she has remained celibate (8 years). Mimi referred to us as sinners at least twice, and wrapped up her presentation by informing us that she knew where she was going when she died. She then asked the group, "Do you [know where we are going when we expire]?" Not only was the subject matter and the religious context objectionable, the forum was uncharacteristically one-sided. Most group leaders encourage an interactive discourse that seems to be more beneficial for all attendees.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Katherine

approaching hopeless

2005-12-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

We once again interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to wax depressive about the significance of today.
There's nothing like a holiday to make a somewhat isolated person slide backward onto the downward spiral to despair. Socially significant events magnify the lifestyle differences that exist between me and the family members that I:

still speak to
live in proximity to
maintain obligatory yet tenuous relationships with

That grand total would be 3; my insane borderline histrionic mother, my poor beleaguered stepfather and my dear Aunt Peg.

I remind myself to be grateful for everything I have. I know there are people who have suffered terrible tragedies. I know there are people who have so much less.

I think it is in our nature to seek understanding. I think it is in our nature to want connection with our families. In the absence of connection, people turn to acts of depravity. I don't know why addiction goes to the place where the void exists and replaces it for just a minute. What intelligent designer wired us that way?

vagrancy vacancy

2005-12-24T18:25:00.000-08:00

Like any small isolated community with limited resources, we of the unit were very interested in newcomers. Suddenly, there would be a flurry of activity at one particular door. Unit counselors would suddenly brandish large rings of keys. Security guards would appear behind the counter conferring with social workers. One counselor would call out to another, "We got three comin' up! One female, two male!" Paperwork and files would change hands. Sometimes the door would open enough to get a glimpse of the "Intake Room." Usually the unit therapist/counselor/social worker would sit with their back to us. One or more people would be around the table. Sometimes it was difficult to guess which was the new patient.
Lenny and I were sitting next to each other on the couch when the Intake door swung open. Lenny turned to look, "We got a new one." I would have turned to look but that would have required me to turn most of my body 180 degrees. Besides, I was engrossed by Lenny's left hand. It was resting on his knee. Which was close to my knee. He had those good mannish hands; thick fingers, wide nail beds, sturdy thumbs, tan and sorta calloused. Very nice.
"Male or female or transgender?" I asked.
"Whatever it was, it looks like a male now." Lenny was funny.
"Looks like you've got a roommate, my friend." I teased him. He had been on the unit for four days with no roommate. That was the equivalent of Five Star accommodations by Psych Ward standards. We were all envious. Roomates could be...well, ooky. On a previous hospitalization, I was placed in a room with a detoxing heroin addict. She did nothing but lay stock still in bed, then suddenly bolt upright and into the bathroom to violently hurl. The entire room smelled like vomit and I woke up every couple of hours during the night to the sounds of her wretching. I don't understand how this was conducive to my stabilization. The worst part was the bathroom situation. I am unable to go to the bathroom (translated; defecate) in public. It just won't happen. Once on a business trip, the company had the rather debasing policy of rooming employees together. I did not go to the bathroom from Sunday until Friday.
"I think he's naked." Lenny was looking back into the room.
"Whaaa?" I almost turned, then thought better of it. I didn't need to see that.
"Seriously, he didn't have a shirt on. I couldn't see under the table, but he's definitley nekked from the waist up." Although he commented on this, he was unphased. For a first-timer, Lenny wasn't particularly freaked out by anything or anybody in this place; not even Angela.
Angela was an old black lady who took over every group meeting. No matter what the subject, Angela had something to contribute and contribute and contribute. Once she raised her hand to share. The counselor acknowledged her. She proceeded to tell us that she suffered from 'incomptenence'. She was going to strike it rich designing a product called "Body Plugs." They would be like tampons for incomptenence. She said that men could benefit from using them as well by eliminating ..."them skid marks they always be havin' up in they drawahs, you know how they be havin' them skid marks. 'Cos they be nasty as hail. And gay mens, too. In case they be dribblin' or somethin'. " She said they would be available in designer colors like purple. She had a passion for purple. That's why she wore something purple every day. If you owned an item that happened to be purple, Angela would ask if she could have it. At another meeting, she told us about the horrendous abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. One story was about how he would often put them in the car and drive head on into oncoming traffic, swerving away at the last possible second. She and her siblings had planned to murder him, but he left before they carried it out. Tears streamed down her face and fell onto her sweatshirt when she told us about dreaming of being a big strapping man who could have beaten her father to protect her siblings. Instead, she tried to place herself between him and the younger ones. After that meeting, where I had been moved by her story, I overheard her ask Dave, "Hey, Hey, baby...how big is your stuff? Cos you be lookin' bi-ig to me. Whatch you, 8? Is you 8? Is you biggah?"

funny puppy thing

2005-12-24T18:17:00.000-08:00

We interrupt the hospital storyline to bring you this very funny puppy story;
Today I was sitting on my kitchen floor, playing with Henry when I passed audible gas. Henry immediately stopped chewing his toy and spun his head around to check his own bottom.

saving patient leonard

2005-12-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

Every day at five o'clock, the dinner cart was rolled down to the dining area. Meals were the only time we could exercise any control over our day. We ordered our meals for the next day at breakfast. A Xeroxed paper was presented to us with a stubby dull pencil. On the paper was the next day's menu options. Caffeine and chocolate were strictly prohibited. They messed with your sleep pattern as well as the efficacy of certain meds. The menu was standard hospital fare, low on the quality and heavy on the simple carbs. If none of the options were appealing to you, there were write-in options; basic items like sandwiches and bags of chips. The homeless people ordered menu options and wrote in extras. For example, Dominic would circle one of the entrees, write in "(1) cheeseburger (1) turkey sandwich (3) bags of chips" in the space provided, and continue circling other options and ordering multiple beverages and condiments. His meals often came on two trays. Anything I didn't eat I offered to Dominic and he took it. As you can imagine, meals become very important in the absence of normal existence; freedom.
The front wheels of our dinner cart appeared in the doorway of the Group Room. Like Pavlovian dogs we all sat watching it. Usually the Group Leaders would wrap up quickly upon a meal cart arrival. Mimi continued on her quest to convert us to born again virgins. She finally wrapped up by looking at us imploringly and stating, "I will not waste my sexuality on just anybody. I will wait for my knight in shining armor. That's right, I'm holding out for a hero! I know where I am going when I die. Do you? (I swear on my life and the life of my puppy- she said this.) Enjoy your dinner."
Dave muttered, "Good Luck, lady." and we filed out the door.
I turned to Leonard and said, "You weren't buying that right wing nut job's load of shit, were you?" He fixed his eyes above my head and said, "Actually, I think she had a lot of good points. The things she said...about stuff that guys do...maybe if I hadn't done that stuff, my girlfriend wouldn't have left me." I dropped the subject. Lenny had been on the unit for 3 days. He'd had a few too many and announced to his fellow patrons of his favorite bar that he intended to jump off a bridge onto the I-88 tollway. He worked in the trades, was a rabid White Sox fan, looked like a tall version of Edward Norton (the American History X actor, not the Honeymooners guy), was very extroverted and very typical in his regular guy-ness. When Lenny "shared" in Group, it was usually about his girlfriend leaving him and how it was all his fault. I think this was his first foray into introspection, not to mention anything "mental health" related. He was three days sober and obviously highly suggestible. Later, over our dinner of write-in grilled cheese sandwiches, I told Pearson, "We may have to de-program Lenny."
"No way. You think he was listening to that?" Pearson was such a great kid. On her first day, I could not understand why she was in the hospital. She had an easy smile that never seemed to be off her face. She was smart and had great social skills. She made me feel welcome and I was there prior to her. In groups, she spoke about her depression and anxiety matter-of-factly. It wasn't until almost a month later, while we were in the Partial Hospital Program, that she pulled up her sleeve and showed me. Hundreds of lines covered her fair skin from wrist to elbow. In varying shades of pink and red, faded to vibrant, old and new, smooth and scabbed, all horizontal, some slightly diagonal, all approximately the same size. They overlapped in curious patterns. Like a scar tissue scorecard; every hurt, every stress, every disappointment tallied up, for life.
"Oh, yeah he was." As if on cue, Mimi and Lenny appeared in the hallway, deep in conversation. I nodded in their direction. "Check it out."
Pearson turned to look. She turned back with an exasperated expression and nodded. "We'll get him after night meds." she said with her eyes narrowed in a conspiratorial fashion.
"Night Meds" were distributed after the last Group Meeting of the day around nine p.m. We were allowed to watch television in the Community Room until 11 p.m. From 9 until 11, the atmosphere of the Community Room became increasingly more festive as the sleep medication kicked in. The first night I took my sleep meds, I suddenly sat up and asked, "Do you guys feel like you have hats on your heads? I feel like I have a little hat on my head." Then I wished them all a good night and stumbled to my room, singing. I have no recollection of this.
Fortunately, we didn't have to wait for Lenny's salvation. Lenny and I were visitor-challenged. I didn't want any visitors. I didn't tell anybody where I was. I didn't call anybody. I didn't care if I ever saw anybody again. I had concocted a rock solid suicide plan for when I got out, so it made no difference anyway. I didn't need anybody around "guilting" me into sticking it out. Lenny's friends consisted of the guys he worked with. He recently got fired for taking "side jobs." These are jobs done on a tradesperson's own time, supposedly with their own materials, for a fraction of the price. The employers feel that the job should be referred back to the company. Taking a side gig is seen as cutting in on the company's business. Truthfully, most owners/employers look the other way. This kind of thing is a given in the trades. However, if you come to work hung over too many times or if the boss is looking for a reason...you just gave him one. None of his work friends knew Lenny was on the unit. His girlfriend was currently packing her belongings. Despite all of Lenny's self-flagellation, it seemed she took off whenever the finances got tight. I pointed this out to Lenny as we sat together in the Community Room during visiting hours (6-8), "Lenny, you say she left when you were layed off. She left during your apprenticeship when you weren't making that much dough. She left when you were injured. She's leavin' now. Do you see a pattern, here?" He considered it. "What does she do?" I asked.
"Whaddya mean?" he countered. He was actually tearing up. His eyes turned from blue to aqua as his face reddened.
"For a living...does she work?" I was snarky. Lenny was a cute guy.
"No...she was going to school...for a while...but I didn't care! I told her she didn't have to work!" Lenny was defensive.
"Uh-Huh!" I said. Snarky, Snarky, Snarky. He was tall. Basketball tall. "Lenny, I'm gonna be honest with you. You won't be alone for long. You're a cute guy. You make decent money. You're tall. Chicks'll be all over ya." Lenny had been kind of hanging his head. Looking down, under the table as we talked. He smiled a little when I said this. It slowly spread until even his eyes were smiling.
"Thanks. Thank you." He held his head high. "Well," he said as he stood up, "I think I'm gonna go take a shower while my roomate's out of the room....." he paused in the hallway at his door, "so I can do that masturbation thing!"
Lenny was back in the fold.

me! me! me! the trilogy trifecta

2005-12-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

"We are all sinners. Everyone here, including myself...a sinner." Mimi was channeling a television evangelist. I wasn't laughing anymore. The base humor of the "spoofed" comment had worn off. I was stunned silent. This woman had opened the meeting with the generalized "men have hurt me" statement. She proceeded to introduce a completely inappropriate topic full of fundamentalist undertones. She'd assumed and declared Pearson and I to be naive or promiscuous or both. Now, she was blatantly pushing a conservative Christian agenda onto a room full of mentally ill people (who were not even here on our own volition). Although the situation was still ludicrous to me, I was wondering if I should be offended. Imagine this happening to a group of cancer patients.
I didn't leave because I knew this show wasn't over yet. I had to see how far she was going to take this. She proceeded to tell us of her failed marriage, which she blamed entirely on her ex-husband. She described him as a wildly successful mechanical genius who was unable to give her emotional support. She went on to describe his blunt affect and lack of social skills. I raised my hand and asked her if he was ever evaluated for Asperger's Syndrome. His symptoms seemed textbook clear. She looked puzzled, then irritated, finally she threw her hands in the air and yelled, "WHO CARES!?!"
Aha. I suspected Mimi had no mental health credentials.
Mimi went on to explain that her marriage was based upon the physical aspect of sex. The marriage had failed because the sex wasn't satisfying. They were not fully experiencing the sex. The image of the Miminator fully experiencing the sex with the Asperger's geek was at once repulsive and morbidly hilarious. Sexual satisfaction, explained Mimi (by way of her Fundamentalist Christian Counselor, I assume) was a three dimensional experience. The three dimensions of sexual satisfaction were Physical, Emotional and Spiritual (disclaimer/notice: this part of the discussion could have some merit. I am not completely opposed to this idea). If you were not experiencing sex on all three dimensions, you were not satisfied. This, according to Mimi (and her cult leader, no doubt) was why people looked to other means such as masturbation, pornography, and adultery.
Dave saw a way to liven up this discussion. He'd been on the ward for 23 days. He had to create entertainment where he could find it. "Awww, what's wrong with a l'il pornography?" he said. For the first time in the four days since I arrived, I saw a bit of life in his eyes. At this, Mimi leaned her buxomness over the table toward Dave. "If you used pornography during your marriage, you did not love your wife." Pearson and I were shocked. Dave spoke lovingly of his wife at every possible opportunity. As sure as Dave loved heroin, he had loved that poor dead coke addicted woman. "Oh, no...I did love my wife...very much so!" Dave actually looked hurt. "No, Dave, you could not have loved your wife if you indulged in pornography. She... never... had... your... heart." When she said the last bit, she brought her fist to her heart like Celine Dion working Ceasar's Palace. Who was this crazy bitch? Why were we being subjected to this?
Mimi told us that any sexual act not experienced with a spouse was ultimately unsatisfying because it could not meet the three dimensional criteria. "That is why masturbation should be avoided." she said. Then, she dropped the bomb, "I understand the temptation. I have been celibate for eight years. I, too, have done the masturbation thing."
I was sure that Pearson and I were in solidarity on this latest bit of Meemster-disclosure. I decided to check in with Leonard. I turned to look at him. He didn't return my look. His eyes looked a little glazed over. His expression was serious...interested, even. I couldn't believe it. He was buying it. She had gotten Lenny.
"The only way to abstain from the masturbation thing is to create accountability, and to make the experience less pleasurable. There are three things you must do when you are tempted to do the masturbation thing. First; you must leave the lights on. Second, you must keep your eyes open. Third, you must not fantasize." She was writing this on the board as she spoke; '1. Lights on!, 2. Eyes Open!' etc. . "Now, I want to talk about accountability. You must find an abstinence partner."
Huh?
"An abstinence partner is a friend, who might be in the same situation as you, who may also be struggling with the masturbation thing. Whenever you feel the temptation to do the masturbation, you call up your friend and say, 'You know, man, I really am tempted to do this masturbation thing' and this is the kind of friend who'll say,'C'mon over. Let's have some coffee and talk about it' and that is what an abstinence partner is."
Tune in again for the riveting conclusion.

me! me! part deux

2005-12-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

At this point I think I should describe Mimi. Mimi is approximately 5'4". She is heavy in a solid way, in a Nebraska or Dakotas way. She wears clothing that would be found in the Women's Career Wear section of a Kohl's Department Store or an anchor store of a "B" or "C" rate shopping mall; JC Penney, Sears, the Carson Pirie Scotts located in lower-tiered markets, etc. On this day she was wearing black pants of a wool/rayon blend. They were definitely lined, because you could hear the swishy swishy sound when she walked. They were easily a size too small and pleated. The pleats were beginning to strain. The waist was so tight, it created a protrusion/shelf/ledge of fat all around the top. Her shirt was a shiny black scoop neck knit. The scoop did not reveal any cleavage but did show some of the tiny moles that spring up on the necks of post-middle aged women (dermatologists call them "tags", I think). The smoothness under her garments suggested heavy duty control top hosiery, full girdle from high on the waist to the knee, full paneled wide strapped brassiere, etc. Atop the knit was the regulation working woman's blazer; forest green, wool/rayon blend, shawl lapels, and black plastic buttons that weren't even trying to imitate horn; just shiny black plastic. The jacket was double breasted, but she wore it open and by anybody's calculations, the buttons and their designated holes would never be in the vicinity of meeting. She wore a yellow gold necklace with a pendant of some sort and a pin on her lapel that looked like falling autumn leaves. Her hair was short; slightly longer on the top, parted in the middle, faded dye job with 1/8 inch of gray roots exposed. She wore wire framed glasses. Her shoes were old school all black Reeboks. You could mistake her for a lesbian. Especially if you're from a coast. Many women in the midwest resemble lesbians. When women in the more rural parts of the midwest begin to age, they cut off all of their hair, stop wearing makeup, gain weight, put on sensible shoes, warm coats, comfortable pants and the like, and get busy resembling lesbians. My mother has worn her hair in a version of the bleached Joe Pesci/Susan Pouter hairdo for a couple of years now. In Chicago, she would look like an old lesbian. In our hometown of Palookaville, she's quite a trendsetter.
Overall, Mimi looked uncomfortable. She labored a bit when she walked. Her torso tended to lean forward in an exaggerated way like she was a pack dog struggling against the weight of the sled. The back of her moved independantly from her front. It looked like it was jostling along, trying to keep up.
Stay tuned.

me! me!

2005-12-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

Between the hours of four and five, patients on the Crisis Stabilization Unit were supposed to attend Patient Education Group. As I am usually a compliant sort, I went down to the Group Room at the end of the hall and took a seat between my roommate, Pearson, a cheery 20 year old cutter, on the right and the cute alcoholic guy, Leonard, on the left. Dave sat next to Leonard. Dave was a former millionaire who had made his fortune owning a bar and selling boats in a resort town on Lake Michigan. He became a heroin addict. After his wife died (slammed her Cadillac through the garage while having a cocaine induced heart attack), the Daveman went to Las Vegas to recreate the lifestyle of the Nicholas Cage character in the film 'Leaving Las Vegas'. He planned to drink and snort heroin and indulge in hookers until he died. He ran through all of his cash and found himself still alive despite his efforts. He currently divides his time between the hospital, heroin binges and suicide attempts. Given his history, Dave always conducted himself as if he were hosting a party. His wardrobe consisted of cargo pants and Hawaiian shirts. In late September. In Illinois. He greeted every female with "Good Morning, Sweetheart!" or "Gonna join us for lunch, beautiful?" The guys received handshakes or robust back slaps.
When Karen came in to join the group, Dave greeted her with his favorite female salutation, "Hey, Dolly!"
Our Group Leader for this hour was Mimi. She immediately said, "Is your name Dolly?" to Karen.
Karen replied no.
"If her name isn't Dolly, why are you calling her that?" Mimi asked Dave.
Dave in his usual cloudy way, responded, "It's a term of....an expression of..."
"Endearment" I said. Dave pointed to me and nodded vigorously.
"He calls us all Dolly. You will probably be Dolly soon enough." I said to Mimi.
"OOOhh, No, I won't." said Mimi in a grave overdramatic way. Then she turned to Dave, "You better not call me Dolly, because I have been very hurt by men in my life."
I exchanged a look with Pearson. We had a feeling we were in for some very interesting Patient Education.
"Before we start, I would like to ask the group a question." said Mimi. "If you believed something, and it wasn't true, would you want to know?" Around the table, there were shrugs, head nods, vague acknowledgements.
"Our Education Group today will be about Sexuality." Mimi wrote "Sexuality" on the board.
Pearson and I exchanged looks again. Across from us, Dominic, a coke addict, made a wheezy sound. Dominic always wheezed, (probably because he looked like he could fall over dead at any minute. His eyes were always half closed, and his mouth hung open with his tongue partially hanging out, and his teeth were just horrible; yellow, black, missing, crooked. He was emaciated with a huge head.) but this was an intentional wheeze. A sort of "Pshaw!" wheeze. We looked at him and he rolled his eyes under the heavy wrinkled lids and shook his head atop his toothpick neck. He was 45. He looked 70 except for his stylish haircut. He had good hair and he was workin' that one last remaining feature for all it was worth.
"Your sexuality is your most precious posession." Mimi was looking at us as if she was going to burst into tears. "But, so often, we just throw it away...instead of waiting for a commitment." What the hell? This was a county, not a faith based, hospital. I did a mental inventory...have I seen any nuns? statues of the Madonna? lifesize depictions of Christ on the cross? those pastel portraits that make Jesus look like a very pretty homosexual hippie with shiny long hair? No, no, no, no. None of those.
"I don't just mean with meaningless trysts with others...I am also talking about masturbation."
Karen, a gentle, quiet soul, rose soundlessly from her seat and floated out the door.
Ashley, the 18 year old "emo" cutter who usually sat with her waist-length hair covering her entire face, clamped her hand over her mouth and laughed out "EXCUSE ME!" before running out.
Dominic sputtered and wheezed and declared "This is not what I am here for!" and made a dismissive gesture with his oversized hand attached to a filament of an arm as he left.
Mimi continued to extol the virtues of celibacy. When Pearson and I couldn't control ourselves and tried unsucessfully to hide our laughter, she pointed to us and shouted, "Laugh all you want, ladies, but you're getting spoofed!" Her choice of the word "spoofed" was too much. Pearson and I laughed openly and didn't try to hide the looks of disbelief and hilarity on our faces. The situation was too ridiculous. We didn't know that the worst was yet to come.
To be continued.

shrink snarkiness

2005-12-20T07:10:00.000-08:00

I met with my new psychiatrist yesterday. I have to describe him. He looks like a Steve Martin parody of a psychiatrist, complete with the graying hair. He was wearing chocolate brown suede crepe soled shoes, black pants, white shirt and a maroon cardigan with a little fire breathing dragon (?) where an alligator or polo player would normally be. It seems as though I have seen the fire breathing dragon logo before, but it was still a surprise. Back in the early 80's there was a boom on these logo polo shirts. The "preppy" trend was still in full force in the midwest. For those of us who couldn't convince our parents that an alligator or polo guy was absolutely necessary, there were unicorns, ducks, tigers (or "le tigre" to be exact), J.Crew had an "oarsman", and so on. The cardigan had to be from this era. He also had on a red tie (red with maroon, black with chocolate, Good Lord, man!) with Santa Claus heads all over it, and a tie pin. The tie pin was gold plated with a round garnet-esque stone. Now, mind you, this was not done in an ironic Rivers Cuomo, indie rock nerd chic kind of way. This guy was dead serious about this outfit. The dragon, the Santas, the pin were earnestly put together. The effect produced a similiar response as when I see pictures of Karl Lagerfeld. This guy designs? This guy designs for Chanel? This guy practices psychiatry? He's obviously undiagnosed, himself.
He was over half an hour late for the appointment. He had the annoying habit of asking a question, not allowing me to answer, and asking another question. He contorted his head around not unlike Joaquin Pheonix performing as Johnny Cash as he talked. He then had the audacity to re-ask the questions that he had previously not allowed me to answer. While I spoke he organized his papers, read and discarded scribbled-on post it notes, opened his desk drawer and inspected it intently, shuffled and restacked manilla folders, etc. It was completely unnerving. I am already vacilating between irritable and exhausted. You can imagine.
His office was ridiculous. Files and folders and papers stacked on every available inch of desk, the adjoining window ledge, across the floor to the wall. This was how my apartment looked right before my most recent hospitalization.
When we had concluded the session, he spun his chair so that his back was to me and pushed off, gliding across the office until his chair rested at a point just ahead, but next to mine. He stuck out his hand for me to shake it. I reached for it and he pulled it away. "Do you have any questions?" he asked. "No, thank you. " I replied. He produced his hand again. I hesitated then shook it. He told me that I didn't "show my depression." I told him the wailing and gnashing of teeth were over for now. My mental illness is no longer a novelty. I have lived with it my whole life. Unless I am in the midst of a major episode, I plod along. Mental health pros are an odd lot. I might do a series of entries about the strangest ones I've encountered.

mind probe monday

2005-12-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

Today I have the double whammy psychiatrist/psychologist back to back appointment marathon!(Monday on the All Psych Network! Don't have the All-Psych Network? Contact your cable service provider NOW!)
I think Henry Miller said the cure for depression was $500. Meaning that if you had disposable income of $500, you wouldn't be forced to sit around lamenting about your lack of discretionary funds. Now, HM said that back in the 30's; so, $500 then would probably need to be a few grand today. I think he was on to something, but I have indulged in a fair amount of retail therapy in my lifetime and it only gave momentary relief. Not to say I don't enjoy some of my more extravagant purchases; my ridiculously expensive bed, my dog, etc. I still experience a fair amount of depressive symptoms. I just get to lay in a very nice bed with a very nice blanket over my head and cry into a very nice pillow all day. At my most depressed, I didn't want to leave the hospital. I was having a completely serious self-dialogue about the possibility of living in a hospital for the rest of my life, and how I could make that happen. They have the absolute worst beds and bedding save for prisons in the Ukraine, perhaps. The showers are disgusting. Nothing about the hospital is nice. Yet, I wanted to remain there for eternity at one point. I found the routine and lack of stress comforting, Also, I could remain alone and yet not completely alone. I could have interesting discussions with the staff and other patients yet not be invested in these situations because the parameters of the relationships were clearly defined. The patients were all temporary. The staff could only be so friendly. I like that. See previous post,"null and void are best friends."
I am caught up in a vicious circle of being uncomfortable with people but being depressed due to lack of contact with people.

hey sistah, go sistah, soul sistah

2005-12-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

I work with a girl, Maria, whose sister is a hooker. Now, she's not the street-walkin', crack addicted, wearing underpants as normal attire, approaching cars on 64th and Halsted kinda hooker. She's the posh hotel, plastic surgery addicted, LaPerla wearin', high end escort service, financial district kinda hooker. Maria was quick to point out this distinction. Maria didn't actually tell me this; her blabber mouth sister-in-law did and quite abruptly. Maria blushed and said, "She works for an escort service." She said it as if hoping I was one of the four remaining people on earth who thinks "escort" means just that.
There is always a point in every relationship; co-worker, friend of a friend, new friend, neighbor, anybody, etc. wherein one has to explain certain family members. "How many siblings do you have?" somebody asks while trying to make conversation or determine your birth order so they can justify your bossiness or attention-seeking or rigid moral code. "Ahhh, a middle child...Needs attention."
This one question turns into another and then another and there you are; considering,"Do I tell them or do I leave it vague?"
I have a brother who is, for all intensive purposes, a criminal.
"What does your brother do?"
"He works at a Correctional Facility in Illinois." It's not really a lie. It's not. Really. He does work while he's incarcerated; sometimes it's on his horrible tattoo collection, his pectoral muscles, his letter writing skills or fundraising for his commissary account or legal defense fund.
"...And he's a student." It's true. He does research on how to be a better criminal. His last batch of counterfeit money fooled almost every bartender in town. Almost.
"What does he study?" what else?
"Criminology."
I have another brother who's a wake-n-bake homeless dude. This is trickier. "How is Stephen?"
"Oh, you know Steve....."
"What is he doing these days?"
"Well, you know Steve...He loves to travel..." He does travel...from a friend's couch to another friend's basement floor to another friend's dad's abandoned camper.
"...He also has quite a green thumb; spends a lot of time gardening." He would have had quite a lucrative hydroponic weed enterprise if his friend's trailer home wouldn't have been raided. I guess the blue-tinged light constantly illuminating the double-wide alerted the police.
"Has he always been interested in gardening?"
"Heck, yeah. Since he was a teen." Mom regularly inspected all of her indoor plants for marijuana seedlings. My Dad made routine sweeps of the wooded acre behind our house to remove larger plants.
"Where's he living now?"
"Gosh, you know that Steve, he's hard to keep up with. He had a place near the beach (read: van in parking lot) but he found a place he liked better near the hospital (read: local homeless shelter)."

god rest ye merry puppy butts

2005-12-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

As Henry is still young and this is his first holiday season (Please don't turn us into the fundamentalists for saying "holiday" I really do think we should respect the religious differences of all.) I am helping him assemble little gifts for his friends. There's Cooper, the full grown Corgi, who lives downstairs and tolerates Henry very well. Truth be told, I bought Henry because I am absolutely in love with Cooper. He is the sweetest dog ever. There's Leni the daschund who is very sleek and always attired fashionably, owned by my dear friends down the street. There's Zsa-Zsa the bug-eyed mostly Pomerianian-mix next door, who wears a rhinestore headpiece and a little collar adorned with bells. And last but not least, there's Tito and Juno, Henry's chihuahua vatos,who live with my friend of 20 years. Each dog is getting a small bag filled with biscuits, treats, dental chews, a small toy and a "Curious George" holiday card, signed with love from Henry. As Henry is a very liberal and accepting sort, he also has friends of the feline variety. Lily and Scout live with Cooper and will be getting small bags filed with cat-appropriate treats and 3 tiny catnip filled mice.

cyclone thigh mick

2005-12-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

I have been under the care of psychologists and psychiatrists for eight years. I have tried seven medications, alone or in combination. I suspected mental illness ran rampant in my family so I started to read anything psychology-related when I was quite young. Insomnia has been a problem for me since I was a small child. I remember staying awake long after everybody else was asleep, creating plays and television shows with my stuffed animals. I started watching Saturday Night Live when I was five. (What five year old is awake at 11:30 p.m.? And alert enough to know John Belushi is her favorite castmember? JB died when I was 11. I heard the news as I was walking home from school and literally sat down on the sidewalk and cried.) I would often find myself curled into a ball on the floor of the living room in front of the TV as my brothers were coming out to watch morning programs like Ray Rayner.
I've realized that there is a seasonal pattern to my disorder. I have periods of high efficacy in the late winter/early spring that last until mid summer. Organization comes easily. I can go to sleep at a reasonable time. I can get out of bed in the morning. I can work for 12-14 hours with no breaks. I lose weight. I start exercise regimes. When I have been promoted at work, it has always been in spring/summer.
I start to slow down in late summer. I feel increasingly more exhausted. I have problems with concentration and short term memory. I feel overwhelmed with work and taking care of myself. During these periods, my laundry goes undone, my dishes remain in the sink for embarrassingly long periods of time, everything is covered in dust. I crave carbohydrates and fat. I gain weight. Nothing seems worthwhile. I can think of nothing to do that seems pleasurable. Sleep begins at a normal hour, then is interrupted every two hours or so until 2 a.m, when I am suddenly wide awake. I have cleaned my house, read books and written papers for school at 2 a.m. At around 4, I feel drowsy and go back to sleep. When my alarm goes off at 6, I can't get out of bed. I slip into suicidal ideation during these periods. It is common for me to have a plan, supplies, and letters written on hand. When I start to feel better or more rational, I rid my house of anything related to "the plan."
In the past, professionals have always diagnosed me with depression; clinical, major, dysthymic...etc. Recently, after purchasing a DSM IV in an attempt to figure out for myself what is going on with me, I ran across the criteria for cyclothymic disorder. It seems to fit with my pattern.
My new elfin shrink told me about hypo-mania. It doesn't fit the criteria for the manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder. It is a step under the euphoria. As he explained it, it sounds like hyper-efficiency. This could be another diagnostic option. I meet with the psychiatrist on Monday. I want to know if I can manage my illness without pharmaceuticals. I wonder what he will suggest.

panic/relief/panic

2005-12-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

I have become the 30 something single female cliche. I alternate hourly between utter despair over being alone and complete relief when I consider intricacies of the relationships of those I know well. I am certain that marriage is obsolete and monogamy was a cruel conspiracy of the monarchy (in cahoots with the church) to stop the spread of venereal disease during the Dark Ages (think about it).
Consider the divorce rate. It is at roughly 100%. We live too long and everybody works. There is no need to stay with one person. Especially if they get too fat or insist on placing the ketchup on the shelf instead of the door in the fridge. I mean, for the love of God, people! Bottles are in the door! It's made that way-for that purpose!
Usually when communication breaks down to that point; arguing over condiments, putting the canned goods in alphabetical order, etc, etc. It coincides with boredom. You've let the routine get stale or the initial hormonal buzz is on the wane. All of the things you knew would eventually get on your nerves, are and with the intensity of a jackhammer. At 5:47 a.m. On a Saturday. With a Hangover.
Now I can't even fathom that kind of annoyance coupled with being all legally bound up; financially and otherwise. I have always managed to destroy relationships before they ever got to that point. I have never co-owned anything with another person. I lived with someone briefly and discussed marriage and even started to plan it (Egads!). We had dated for approximately one year when he initiated the marriage discussion. We decided to move in together to give it a trial run and start to save toward financing the shindig. Disastrous. He immediately stopped participating in the relationship. He stopped all of the thoughtful little demonstrations of affection; taking out the garbage, paying for dates, kissing me goodbye, speaking to me...
One morning, after trudging through the Chicago snowdrifts to procure groceries (one of every chore that was relegated to me) I opened the door to our apartment to find him on the couch, watching Cartoon Network(what was my first clue?). I flipped out. I bounced an economy sized bundle (24 rolls) of toilet paper off of his head, while screaming, "I am not your slave! I am not your slave!"
Later that week, at my shrink du jour, I told her of the incident. I realized that our relationship now resembled an overwrought shrewish single mother to a sullen angsty teenage boy. I told her, "I don't want to be in a relationship that requires me to do all of the work."
Until this point, my shrinky dink had displayed all of the warmth and personality of Lillith, the psychiatrist wife of Frasier from Cheers. Upon hearing this, she took off her glasses, scooted to the edge of the seat and leaned into my face. Her eyes actually took on some fire and she asked me, "What if I told you that the woman always does all of the work?"

king of the mountain

2005-12-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

The following is a play-by play of a hypothetical family outing. It is compiled from actual events which took place during our family vacations in the 70's. I've chosen a mountain park as a destination.

Prior to departing for the mountain;
Mom and Dad get into a bitter argument because Dad promised to take us, and then denied any such promise at the last minute.
Second-oldest brother Steve and Dad get into a fistfight because Steve refuses to sit in the back although it is undoubtedly his turn.
Oldest sister Pam bursts into tears because she is afraid she is too fat to climb the mountain and plus she only has one pair of shoes, clunky wooden clogs. My mother tells her, “You are the one that wanted those damn ugly shoes! I told you to get something else, but noooooo! Shut the hell up and get yer ass in the car!”
A 25 minute house search for Lil Kathy ensues. Nobody realized she had been patiently waiting in the car even though she told her sister, mother and father.

At the GasNSip Convenience Mart;
Older brother Steve shoplifts cigarettes, rolling papers and one of those oversized combs that everybody wore in their back pocket.
Oldest sister Pam vomits in the restroom due to motion sickness and bursts into tears.
A 25 minute search of the store, the parking lot and the adjacent wooded lot takes place to find lil Kathy. Nobody realized she didn’t get out of the car.
Brother Jeff is left behind because he was looking at a shoplifted Hustler magazine in the restroom. He is picked up approximately ¼ mile down the road.

At the Mountain entrance;
Dad embarrasses us by complaining about the cost of admission to the guy manning the gate.
Mom and Dad have a bitter argument about finances.
Mom embarrasses Dad by asking the gate guy if we can get our money back because (quote) “…My husband is a god damn cheapskate jackass!”
My father yells at my mother to “Just C’mon, Patsy! Damn!”

At the Mountain;
Dad remains in the parking lot smoking cigarettes and listening to Merle Haggard on 8-track. He claims an old army injury is acting up so he doesn’t have to be seen with Mom, who is currently at her heavy weight.
Steve and Jeff purposely get lost so they can smoke weed and vandalize the men’s bathroom.
Pam bursts into tears at the base of the mountain because she is afraid to climb and already has a blister.
Mom starts up the mountain only to become distracted by picking up litter and rearranging piles of rocks.
Lil Kathy climbs the mountain, comes back down and gets into the car. Nobody notices and a 25 minute search of the mountain ensues.

After the mountain;
Steve and Jeff both claim to be King of the Mountain. A fistfight breaks out after Steve calls Jeff a faggot, and Jeff calls Steve a queer.
Pam weeps silently.
Mom turns around on her knees in the front seat, so that if you were facing the front of our car her ample polyester covered bottom would be on full display. She deftly beats Steve and Jeff into submission while shrieking threats punctuated by obscenities.
Lil Kathy makes faces and obscene gestures to the occupants of other cars.
Dad bitterly argues with Mom about directions and is in turn reminded of his infidelity in 1964.

relevance

2005-12-11T01:35:00.000-08:00

After Kurt Cobain blew his head off, I read an interview with Courtney Love in which she said, "I had a prince. Don't think I don't know I had a prince!" Or something to that effect, only more slurred.
Long ago and far way, I had a prince. He was georgeous and brilliant and I think he actually loved me; for whatever that meant to people so young. But, I was a bad bad girl. I was careless with a delicate man (Thanks, Fiona). Although he wanted to remain, I sent him away. I had been sullied by my transgressions. I was no longer worthy of the prince.
He and his life have fared better for it. He met his intellectual peer (a french virgin, no less) and now lives a charmed existence in a picturesque french setting. I googled his name and found his blog. There is picture of him holding one of his children. It is so beautiful that tears immediately stung my eyes.
In reference to our hometown, he recently told me that he was glad he ended up elsewhere. I am glad he ended up elsewhere as well, more than just geographically.

stepgod

2005-12-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

"God told me she had that baby." My mother is religious today. No matter that the doctor had determined the delivery date of my wayward niece's illegitimate progeny some months ago. God had delivered the news to my mother.
My mother is fluctuating between barfly and Baptist neo-con hourly. One moment she's dropping "F" bombs and the next she swears that she can see the signs of the apocalypse all around us. Just as alarming, she has lost a considerable amount of weight over the last few months with no change in her eating habits or incorporation of an exercise routine. She replaces household appliances frequently, citing a litany of defects or most frequently complaining that she "...just can't get them clean." She cleans her house every morning and sits in one chair for the remainder of the day so as to not mess anything up. Dishes may never for one moment linger in the sink. They must be washed, placed in a drainer and then washed again in the dishwasher (the second one she's had in two years). In four years, my parents have mortgaged their house three times to keep up with the replacement and re-replacement of virtually every household item they own. They are bankrupt. On the eve of my stepfather's retirement from 40 plus years with the railroad, he is in financial ruin.
"She's toxic." My new pint-sized shrink with the peculiar eyelids says matter-of-factly. "Sounds like bipolar, borderline personality disorder, OCD and some psychotic episodes thrown in." He's right. On all counts.

genesis

2005-12-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

"Why don't you just go see someone and take the medication?" One of the most influential people in my life was telling me, without really telling me, that I needed some kind of help. So, I went. I saw someone; a mousy plain-Jane therapist named Amy. I told her of my recent breakup, my history of suicidal ideation, my OCD tendencies. I asked her about medication and she referred a psychiatrist; a no-nonsense Indian woman. She asked only the most perfunctory questions and handed me a prescription for Luvox. I began taking it precisely as described. I did not deviate from my scheduled dose. I began to feel better. Was it the Luvox or my liberation from a disastrous relationship? Was it the Luvox or that my dear friend had moved to the area and I finally had a partner in crime with whom to discover the city? Was it a combo platter of all three? I don't know. Perhaps my neurotransmitters had been dormant for so long that the Luvox was a much needed kick in the ass to get the Seratonin moving around again. I went vegan. I lost weight. Men were looking at me again. I was feelin' fine! I was promoted. I was thrown into a new schedule, new office, new cagey political work situations. I stopped making my appointments with my shrink. I stopped taking my meds as prescribed. My friend started a series of short term albeit intense relationships with recovering alcoholics she met in AA. I had lost my partner in crime. I started to eat garbage again. I saw my psychiatrist. "How much weight have you lost?" she demanded. "Forty pounds." I was proud.
"Do you know that anorexia is a side effect of Luvox?" she asked.
"Uhh, no...I am far from anorexic, I assure you...I have changed my diet..." I stammered.
Why does she seem impatient or angry with me?
"How is your sleep?" she cut me off.
"Well, I wake up throughout the night, usually every couple of hours..."
"How about friends? How many friends do you have?" she cut me off again.
I felt attacked. I felt like I was being interrogated. My eyes filled with tears.
" I have a couple...I guess."
She was staring at me, hard. "Why do you become tearful when I ask you about friends? Why do you have no friends?"
I couldn't answer her. My throat was clenched around a sob.

null and void are best friends

2005-12-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

"A person whom one knows well and is fond of..." Sounds harmless enough, no? This was not my experience with friends. Most brought problems. Unnegotiated terrain like compromise, scrutiny, judgment, accommodation, and accountability came along with the title. Strange experiences accompanied friendship. I became more comfortable with being alone very early. Chaos reigned in my childhood homes. Plural. We were a nomadic clan headed up by two very unstable parents. My father never quite caught on that no matter where he went, there he was. At least 13 schools in 6 states lay between kindergarten and high school graduation. Honesty and Integrity were not a part of my family's dynamic. My parents lied to us and each other with such frequency that I thought of truth as situational. Parameters were fluid and could be manipulated with no consequence. My father would often make promises, such as, "Next weekend, we'll go to the circus." The next weekend would come and I would ask when we would be departing for the circus, and my Dad would say,” What circus? I never said that!" Rules were established one day and forgotten the next. One day we reveled in our heathen status and the next week we were being enrolled in Christian schools and forced to wear skirts every day. My mother took on different tones of voice, varying degrees of Southern accent, different mannerisms and behaviors during these times. People were confusing. Coloring books were my refuge. The lines were definite. If you closed the book and re-opened it, the image remained intact. The colors were to stay contained within them. That was a rule that did not change. That I knew for sure.

charlie brown shoes

2005-12-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

I was newly 14 and had kissed one other boy. He was 17 and to me, almost like a grown man. He had those heavy drowsy eyelids that partially obscured irises of watery blue-green. When he turned them to me, I felt faint. My best friend and I were convinced he had the same exact nose as Michelangelo’s David. Light seemed to attach itself along the two ridges of flesh created by that divot connecting his nose and upper lip. When I thought he was unaware, I would stare at his full rectangular shaped bottom lip like it was a beacon. He would catch me and I would avert my eyes for fear my heart would literally stop. He was on our pitifully bad football team and had a v-shaped torso which sat atop the prominent upper glutes and thick thighs typical of linemen. His shoulders seemed massive and rocklike. When he spoke to me, he made a show of bending down as if from a great distance (His 6’3” to my 5’4”); casting me in his shadow. Over and over, my mind replays the first time he pulled me beneath him into the cushions of my mother’s couch. He was at least 75 pounds heavier than my 115 pound frame. I was afraid, but there was no way I wanted him to stop. Warm dark water rises slowly and lifts me afloat; I close my eyes and am gently engulfed. I do not struggle in his wake. I am being carried away in a current so subtle it is barely perceptible. My mind approaches serenity, emptiness, but I am not asleep. I am sustained only by these sensations that originate in the core of each of my cells and I do not exist outside of this situation, outside the feeling of his skin, his smell, his mouth, my hand on the back of his neck, in his hair, the weight of him keeping me submerged. There is no concept of time here. An hour could be a minute, several could have passed or none at all. We would emerge, panicked and disoriented in the wee hours of the morning, untangle ourselves from each other and the throw blanket. He would run out while putting on his coat, pause to give me one last look or grin and be gone with a “whump!” of our front door and a blast of cold air and snow. Like debris, suddenly washed ashore, head and shoulders’ gentle collision first, clothing weighted, hung up on small rocks bulrush and driftwood, limbs heavy, only aware of the absence of his weight and heat. Cold air foreign without his dioxide, sound intrudes my ears.