I am an envious person. Whenever I meet someone and spend an extended amount of time-- maybe, say, twenty minutes-- with them, I immediately decide that what they have is something I want. Perhaps it is a product of growing up an only child or maybe it stems from Santa bringing me too many hand me down toys but the fact is, you could be the worse person on the planet and I would somehow conclude that you have something I want. And maybe you do.
The bum on the street? He has a world view I will never gain, no matter how hard I try. He made way worse decisions than I have ever had the courage to make. He has seen more summer nights than I ever will with my 10pm/5am schedule. And really, if pressed, he could write a book. And it would be better than mine.
My brother in law used to date a woman prone to drug use. Her life was a disaster. I was convinced she was wiser than I could ever hope to be. I still kind of believe that.
There is an old black gentlemen who lives in the neighborhood where I used to live. He looks young, but is probably close to seventy. He walks everyday and he stares. he knows cars, people, the business of the land. One day it was raining like hell and i saw him, a limping figure moving slowly, laboriously down the road. I wanted to turn around and I almost did. Emphasis on almost. One day, when it is raining again, I'm going to pick him up and find out all the reasons that I should be envious of him. I'm sure there are plenty.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Snapshots
Art (following a canine tantrum): I wish I was a cat person.
Me: So you could climb trees?
Dad: "Nick, you get it no more tickets. you get a moving violation and your insurance doubles!"
Nick(in the middle of a crowded local restaurant that we attend regularly): "Man, I'd just go all Oakland on their ass"
Dad: "I lock up all my guns, you go Oakland on no one dude."
Me: So you could climb trees?
Dad: "Nick, you get it no more tickets. you get a moving violation and your insurance doubles!"
Nick(in the middle of a crowded local restaurant that we attend regularly): "Man, I'd just go all Oakland on their ass"
Dad: "I lock up all my guns, you go Oakland on no one dude."
Friday, June 19, 2009
Marriage HJ
In this day and age it can be assumed that many people experience the joy of sex long before marriage. If you are prone to reading newspapers, specifically those produced in small towns in the Midwest, you undoubtedly believe that a hand job is now considered a form of communication for anyone over the age of 12.
No matter your opinion it is a fact that there are a few rare treats, gems within the world of sex, that are saved solely for a married couple. These special experiences are only possible after a number of years of companionship, and do not come easy or even at all for those together less than three years. In addition, they are rarely seen among those involved in long distance relationships. In fact, it is almost completely accurate to say that the more time you spend with your significant other, the more opportune such interactions become.
I am speaking of the marriage hand job. I am speaking of the nights when you return home to the man you married or are committed to, or share so much debt with that you cannot leave, and he is whining or yearning or suggesting. He needs you and you are flat exhausted in a way that, you can imagine, a spartan might feel after three days of battle. Maybe there is spit up on your shirt, under your left breast, and you never washed it off because well, your breasts grew so much during pregnancy you're pretty sure no one even notices it. Perhaps you "hate-ate" a whole bag of potato chips at work while you typed email after email and listened to your boss drone endlessly about her life. You know the circumstances and you know them well. And you know that all you can really spare is your left hand.
The thing about the marriage handjob is that it is the ultimate gift. Each flick of your wrist is a hurdle climbed, an inch closer to the end of your day, to the completion of your to do list. You're not in the mood and you're not going to be but you do it nonetheless. And afterward, you sleep better for it.
The next day he smiles at you over coffee, he kisses you as you leave for work, he feeds the kids so you can put on mascara. As you're driving down the street you look at your right hand against the wheel, "get ready" you tell it because it is another day.
No matter your opinion it is a fact that there are a few rare treats, gems within the world of sex, that are saved solely for a married couple. These special experiences are only possible after a number of years of companionship, and do not come easy or even at all for those together less than three years. In addition, they are rarely seen among those involved in long distance relationships. In fact, it is almost completely accurate to say that the more time you spend with your significant other, the more opportune such interactions become.
I am speaking of the marriage hand job. I am speaking of the nights when you return home to the man you married or are committed to, or share so much debt with that you cannot leave, and he is whining or yearning or suggesting. He needs you and you are flat exhausted in a way that, you can imagine, a spartan might feel after three days of battle. Maybe there is spit up on your shirt, under your left breast, and you never washed it off because well, your breasts grew so much during pregnancy you're pretty sure no one even notices it. Perhaps you "hate-ate" a whole bag of potato chips at work while you typed email after email and listened to your boss drone endlessly about her life. You know the circumstances and you know them well. And you know that all you can really spare is your left hand.
The thing about the marriage handjob is that it is the ultimate gift. Each flick of your wrist is a hurdle climbed, an inch closer to the end of your day, to the completion of your to do list. You're not in the mood and you're not going to be but you do it nonetheless. And afterward, you sleep better for it.
The next day he smiles at you over coffee, he kisses you as you leave for work, he feeds the kids so you can put on mascara. As you're driving down the street you look at your right hand against the wheel, "get ready" you tell it because it is another day.
The Glovebox
It is Friday, June 19th. I have no major plans for the weekend other than Father's day. When you have three fathers, this hallmark holiday takes a little more planning. One father is rather easy, as he is slightly borrowed from my husband (who truly owns him by both shared blood and shared name). The other two are completely my own-- I am the only daughter to both of these men, and I do what I can to make this holiday special.
It is Friday June 19th and it is not a special day. The anniversary of the day my husband and I met came and went with a soft sign, and the anniversary of our wedding is still months away. We are busy again, something we both anticipated the way a person in the ocean expects an oncoming wave-- you are so focused on the climax, you don't enjoy the calm. It is just a normal day.
It is Friday June 19th, 2009 and I think you can see the path I am laying. It is slow in the office and there is little noise, few phone calls, only three sole bodies and one of them smells (but that is another story).
Art picked me up today and I watched his face as I made my way down the cement stairs leading to the parking lot. He was in his old Explorer and the sun reflected off of the dull hunter green paint in splashes of color and light. He smiled wide at me and I smiled back. I climbed in the car on this ordinary day and broke the perfect silence with immediate, desperate conversation. Because everything is a big deal to me, I had to share the latest news. We made it past one row of cars and to the stop sign before he asked me to open the glove box. We made it past another parking lot, the sun glowing off the window, bouncing back out to the ground, before I opened the red jewelry box inside the glove box. It was perfect, on a really great day. I told him I was just happy for the company, for the surprise. I meant it.
It is Friday, June 19th and I am content with the lull between waves.
It is Friday June 19th and it is not a special day. The anniversary of the day my husband and I met came and went with a soft sign, and the anniversary of our wedding is still months away. We are busy again, something we both anticipated the way a person in the ocean expects an oncoming wave-- you are so focused on the climax, you don't enjoy the calm. It is just a normal day.
It is Friday June 19th, 2009 and I think you can see the path I am laying. It is slow in the office and there is little noise, few phone calls, only three sole bodies and one of them smells (but that is another story).
Art picked me up today and I watched his face as I made my way down the cement stairs leading to the parking lot. He was in his old Explorer and the sun reflected off of the dull hunter green paint in splashes of color and light. He smiled wide at me and I smiled back. I climbed in the car on this ordinary day and broke the perfect silence with immediate, desperate conversation. Because everything is a big deal to me, I had to share the latest news. We made it past one row of cars and to the stop sign before he asked me to open the glove box. We made it past another parking lot, the sun glowing off the window, bouncing back out to the ground, before I opened the red jewelry box inside the glove box. It was perfect, on a really great day. I told him I was just happy for the company, for the surprise. I meant it.
It is Friday, June 19th and I am content with the lull between waves.
A letter from 1987
The thing about reinventing your life is that it only takes a few steps to undo years of unwanted decay. The thing about reinventing yourself is that people rarely do it and the few that prove successful are often criticized instead of praised.
On Thursday, I ran into an old friend I had grown up with. I had not seen him for at least fifteen years, maybe longer. I am 25 years old. This old friend looked a lot like my childhood-- only he was grown. From the passenger window of my car, past his arm propped against the door his wife stood smiling with a piece of lunch meat in her hand. They were a nice couple, preoccupied at the moment with trying to catch a loose animal, and while I am not sure what kind of animal it was, I like to imagine it was a dog; A golden retriever--something cuddly, soft, and cute. I liked to think that they were trying to catch something that didn't remind me of age or change; the kind of animal that will always make you feel young and give even the most geriatric of legs the itch to run.
I came home and told my mother I could not move to her neighborhood. That husband and I had to relocate, so that my young daughter (not yet born) will not grow up down the street from the young children (not yet born) of the person that so resembles my childhood. And on that note, she handed me a letter from 1987.
It was not addressed to me, and it did not look 22 years old. "Dear Roger and Sally", it began subtly in courier new font. It proceeded to tell me, in eight to ten paragraphs, about a man I have always known but never understood. They were the words of my father, no doubt written for him through transcription and by typewriter, courtesy of the woman he was dating at the time, a woman who had red hair and let me sleep between them at night.
There were only a handful of errors in the whole letter but they were atrocious misspellings-- the kind that remind you that spell check is still a young tool. The man that dictated that letter was the proud, loving father of a four year old me, a girl he described as being "not the type to sit in the corner and sip lemonade while wearing a frilly dress." What was most astounding was how he spoke of me, of Jenny, so proudly, so purposely. He does not speak now.
My goal for this blog is not necessarily to share, especially not right away and certainly not completely publicly. Instead, it is to practice creating my life through words, on paper, in a way that intrigues and speaks truths and makes transparent the mysteries of the world. I hope this becomes habit, like a good glass of wine. I hope that it becomes art.
On Thursday, I ran into an old friend I had grown up with. I had not seen him for at least fifteen years, maybe longer. I am 25 years old. This old friend looked a lot like my childhood-- only he was grown. From the passenger window of my car, past his arm propped against the door his wife stood smiling with a piece of lunch meat in her hand. They were a nice couple, preoccupied at the moment with trying to catch a loose animal, and while I am not sure what kind of animal it was, I like to imagine it was a dog; A golden retriever--something cuddly, soft, and cute. I liked to think that they were trying to catch something that didn't remind me of age or change; the kind of animal that will always make you feel young and give even the most geriatric of legs the itch to run.
I came home and told my mother I could not move to her neighborhood. That husband and I had to relocate, so that my young daughter (not yet born) will not grow up down the street from the young children (not yet born) of the person that so resembles my childhood. And on that note, she handed me a letter from 1987.
It was not addressed to me, and it did not look 22 years old. "Dear Roger and Sally", it began subtly in courier new font. It proceeded to tell me, in eight to ten paragraphs, about a man I have always known but never understood. They were the words of my father, no doubt written for him through transcription and by typewriter, courtesy of the woman he was dating at the time, a woman who had red hair and let me sleep between them at night.
There were only a handful of errors in the whole letter but they were atrocious misspellings-- the kind that remind you that spell check is still a young tool. The man that dictated that letter was the proud, loving father of a four year old me, a girl he described as being "not the type to sit in the corner and sip lemonade while wearing a frilly dress." What was most astounding was how he spoke of me, of Jenny, so proudly, so purposely. He does not speak now.
My goal for this blog is not necessarily to share, especially not right away and certainly not completely publicly. Instead, it is to practice creating my life through words, on paper, in a way that intrigues and speaks truths and makes transparent the mysteries of the world. I hope this becomes habit, like a good glass of wine. I hope that it becomes art.
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