quick fix

"dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es"
"tell me what you eat, and i will tell you what you are."

brillat-savarin's master-work wasn't published until two months before his death, but he already had gained a certain renommee as an epicure, and now lost in the truffled mist, a bit of a scold. he was far more impressed by a simple meal prepared with thoughtful artistry than by a groaning board of ortolans and foie gras; he was an advocate of more veggies/less meat and a harsh critic of refined flour. (although that last bit may have been a philosophical hedge to sever associations with the "let them eat cake!" crowd so recently of the rolling heads {i KNOW she never said it, but go with the flow here, ok?})

what many also miss is his more holistic inference. the excesses of the ousted aristocracy still loomed large, and most french lived a never-ending cycle of back-breaking toil, poorly fueled by gnawing hunger. he who consumed recklessly was not just disregarding his own self, but affecting the greater whole by selfishly wasting scant resources. at that point, gluttony remained a sin of the privileged class.

it took only a few decades for the industrial revolution to create a new prosperity (the 1st american skyrocket ?), a whole new paradigm for labor and leisure, and with it, burgeoning waistlines. this quickly spawned a new batch of scolds like rev. graham (he of the crunchy cracker), horace fletcher (the great masticator) and dr. kellogg (cereal AND enemas -- whooosh!)

fast forward to earl butz, a mandate for cheap food and the rushing flood of high-fructose corn syrup. et voila, welcome to the fattest country on the planet.

as referenced in my last post, we're bombarded by quick-fixes: pills, powders, frozen trays of who-knows-what; low-fat ice cream, coke with protein, oat bran cookies. add a seeming endless stream of conflicting medical studies: high-fat diets cause cancer, but low-fat regimens don't prevent it; being underweight adds years to your life, but being overweight doesn't seem to diminish longevity; south beach, atkins, ornish; the french paradox, the mediterranean diet, the 100+ year old women on that japanese island -- it could be head-spinning.

trouble is, it all lacks context and americans are all about the quick fix. i work with a woman in her 50s. last year she quit smoking (yeah!), but has since gained about 50 pounds. (uh-oh!) her son bought her a treadmill. she admits it's a clothes rack, but she keeps talking about going on jenny craig first, cuz she saw how much weight tony orlando (!!) lost. she was complaining her skin and scalp were very dry. i suggested she drink more water. "i don't like water." uh, ok. her doctor then prescribed fish oil capsules, which cost $20 a week. a regular customer was extolling omega-3 capsules, so she will buy them this weekend. it occurs naturally in many foods, but why eat salmon or eggs when you can pop a pill ?

all sorts of things can get us to a place we never thought we'd be. despair, depression, non-accountability and self-loathing all made me just lay down the reins, and the results produced a decidedly unpleasant "before". now i'm working towards the "after". the old grey mare certainly isn't what she used to be, and my metabolism and muscle memory are no longer short quick-snapping rubber bands of response. however, i don't dread going to the gym like lots of folks do and am happy when i am there. my irregular schedule makes a *set* routine impossible, but as long as i get in a certain amount of time plus each week, i feel accomplished. although my progress seems to disappoint certain observers, i can feel the changes and see improvements. i am trying to be reasonable. i no longer expect to fit into the jeans of that anorexic/bulimic 24-year-old, but there's no reason what i could wear a few years ago should remain on the rack.

a certain person is fond of reminding me i am not the person i like to think i am. what that makes me in his eyes, i'm never totally sure, but in this case, with something i really can control, i'd like to get closer to what i thought i was. ne c'est pas?

stop cancer

trapped on an exercise machine, with no beneficent tivo to edit my viewing, i see all kinds of adverts aimed at not-me. over these last weeks, i have seen tony orlando toss away his fat pants at least a hundred times. clearly i am sweating during old-lady tv time, because i heard valerie bertinelli has also thrown away her fat pants, yet i've never seen that. tying a yellow ribbon must resonate better than the hottie from a long ago and for-the-time racy sitcom. (divorced mom! 2 crazy daughters! in the city!) a show i loved (even though their clothes were decidedly mid-western and not as cool as mine, ahem) and i wanted to be valerie bertinelli and i liked her tv mom better than my real mom and then she went and married a guitar god and, well...

anyway...

over the course of my course, i see dozens of ads for diet plans and pills but none for gyms or at-home machines, so presumably the folks watching at home are fat and disinclined to exercise, but sufficiently guileless to buy a months' worth of delivered diet meals, along with "free silver serum powder" (or some such crap, sweat is in my eyes, ya know?) even though all the before and after model pics have a disclaimer: "RESULTS NOT TYPICAL". i know those jenny craig meals are tiny, so i'm guessing lots of folks just sneak around to snarf up the ben & jerry's later in the night, then bitch their diet isn't working.

i also see lots of dysfunctional penis ads, so some retired tired-out men must be watching cnn in the late morning. or maybe those ads are for the wives too? although, without the sound, those ads aren't nearly as hilarious. we all know few men would call their doctor about a 4-hour hard-on. they'd more likely call everybody but their mother to brag about it. (would i call the md on his behalf? better ask me in a few more years, cuz right now if i met a guy who could keep solid for that long, i might just request a contract amendment.) an inability to distinguish between blue and green would be a mere trifle with such relentless wood. (brand new meaning to the "splendid splinter.") the dizziness and fainting might be a bit more troubling, but hell, just stay horizontal with your perpendicular manhood. without the sound, it's hard to tell what they're all on about. there is one with this couple sitting in side-by-side bathtubs, holding hands, on a hilltop, watching the sunset. wtf? is there water in the tubs? wouldn't it get too cold to enjoy unless it was over 100 degrees outside? (we all know for me the ambient temp would need to be upwards of 120, in which case my partner would be the holder of a badly poached sausage.) is that foreplay when you're 60? sunbeams, porcelain and pollen?

sandwiched between the ads and the promos are the shreds of news. one of the *top* stories today was of a prostate cancer study. did men not formerly live long enough to get this ?

recommendations for prevention (bullet point lists hold far more gravitas {as do latin words}):

• eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains
• eat less meat
• stop smoking
• exercise regularly

other than the not-ready-for-daytime-tv advice of more fucking missing from the list, i ask you, is this not the kind of thing that makes you go "DUH!"? even homer simpson knows he *should* exercise, lol.

i think from now on i'll bring a magazine. or at least for 2 weeks until i can gloat watching looped espn highlights of the pats kicking the giants' collective ass. :)

trapped in amber

memory plays cruel tricks, and one of the worst is that in our heads, everybody remains as last we saw them. this can be misty and kind, as in the friend or lover we never picture with 10 (or) more years on him. i'm not one for criss-crossy karma paths and such, and "oh! maybe we weren't quite ready in a former reincarnation, but this time..." over is over, no matter how pink the mist and how fondly we remember what-have-you. yet i think partners/lovers/fuckers need to give each other credit for possible growth. i've never liked milk, but that doesn't mean the rest of me is carved in stone too, ya know?

i don't think we shift our core. rather, it's that we learn or choose to change our responses, to better suit that center. that part that we gradually learn to accept and honor, without false choices, without guile.

"remember when i did x, which made you do y?" yes, i do, but that was years ago, and i'm not certain i'd react quite the same way, so why are *you* ?" (generic/royal you, of course.) in *your* head, am i that limited ? there is no room for change or growth ? i see *you* behaving in new ways. i know that i am too.

do you see?

i can no longer just stay still.

attack of the blobs

previous posts have been whiny bitch-fests about the dire quality-time i spend on the t. the personal equivalent of chinese toy-factory rejects that get shipped gratis, chipped lead paint and all, to botswana. all those hours, all week, i'm exposed to an excess of humanity, both in their excesses and excessiveness. the i-pod so loud i can hear the throbbing spanish 5 seats away, the backpack that's bigger than a marine's in kandahar immobile in front of both opening doors, the surreal slo-mo of doped out oxy dudes, the retarded couple's slap fight, the kids released from the confines of school carrying on like crazies, the puking, the broken arms...

but this one is about the bigguns.

previously i wrote about the incredible traveling breakfast buffet girl. in 30 minutes she consumed 3 distinct masses of mess from dunkins', each with its own heavy sticky schmear. it was an amazing feat of consumption. well, i saw her again this week, on the platform. if she hadn't been stuffing her face, i'm not convinced i'd have recognized her. but she was gnawing at something in the brown dd bag. i took the next train, so only got the preview of her lunch-time performance.

yesterday, not one, not two, but THREE parties who initially insisted on sitting in a booth at the restaurant subsequently asked to move, "because the booth was too small." i'd initially headed towards tables, seeing their girth. i watched with embarrassment while they tried wedging themselves in and even their sweat couldn't grease 'em up enough.

last night i watched (well, out of the corner of my eye) 2 people who took up 4 seats on the t. shoelaces undone because their feet were so fat. gender utterly uncertain because they were just so big. incredibly obese women can become hirsute, and really porky guys just get so soft and rolly, you're not sure they have a package down there. initially, i thought they were siblings, but then disturbing strokes of affection started happening and i got squicked. face piercings, neck tattoos, ear stretchers... um, you hate your appearance how much?

this morning, 2 girls (pink coats...) sat one behind the other, but each took up both seats. no way even nicole ritchie at her most bulimic matchstickiness could have perched on the other seat. i marveled at how they were stuffed in their puffy coats. they were extra loud, but both had very pretty eyes. one had an elaborate face tattoo, snaking down into her coat. they both had lots of face jewelry.

not long ago, i saw video of a girl down south who was about 10 and so fat she had to crab and scutter around the house. too fat to get on the schoolbus or in the car, she weighed close to 400 pounds and hadn't left the house for months. a dear friend sent me the article on the 8-month old chinese baby who weighs nearly 100 pounds. he can't crawl or turn himself over. their parents keep feeding them and just remain amazed at their ever-growing appetites.

the upsurge of the obese and their cousin the super-obese is no news. hell, there are web-sites that sell leg straps to pull your thick unmanageable thigh out of your car and brushes to scrub away the unknown from between your folds. what's fascinated me these last few encounters is how they become so big their gender is rendered naught. is that why they grow themselves so much? they manifest their self-loathing to the degree that nobody, literally, can get close?

why is there no "off" switch? i know food is cheaper, relatively, than at any time in our history on the planet. i know bad calories are cheaper than good calories. in other words, you can get full on big macs way before you get full on the dollar-equivalent of carrots. but when was that zeitgeist moment when it became ok to be enormous? in my school we had 2 girls and 1 boy like that. now i see them pile on the train in the afternoon and i wonder if they all have their insulin pens?

when i become empress of the universe, i will atomize all the corn fields -- presto-chango, no more hfcs. ok, not all of 'em, cuz i'll still want corn on the cob, but nearly all of them and that good eating corn is a different breed anyway.

yesterday i read that the wic vouchers mothers receive have a monthly allowance of $6 for fresh fruits or vegetables. you can buy boxed pudding or a supermarket cake with that gritty waxy frosting (how do they make something that should be smooth seem like it has mica in it?) and packed in a plastic dome or shrink-wrapped baloney, but precious few apples and broccoli.

so i'll end this on another giant wtf, and a bit less surprise at the 400-pound kids of color i keep seeing.

quotable

“the infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell.”

~~bertrand russell

l'avoir tout

president sarkozy married carla bruni this weekend. she of the staggering cheekbones and he de le poids petite.

his marriage to another former model was over when he was elected, but this has been a whirlwind even by french standards. they met in november, she is rumored to be preggers and the french are hating the whole thing -- and not for the american faux-reason of bitter wife left in dust.

let's see: bruni was born into a wealthy artistic family, heiress to a tire fortune. she is expensively-educated and speaks three languages fluently. she is gorgeous. at 19 she was the star of a guess? jeans campaign and went on to become one of the 90s super-super-models, working for dior, givenchy, and yves-ste-laurent. she was arm candy for clapton, jagger, costner and well, er, trump. (shudder to think, but who knows. big schlong? magic tongue? maybe just the billions, dunno.) she retired gracefully and began a singing career. her albums have been commercial successes. did i mention she is gorgeous?

at one point she was involved with an older writer. they joined his son and daughter-in-law for a holiday. the son left with bruni and divorced his wife (daughter of bernard levy). the spurned wife wrote a memoir as purported fiction in which the female enemy is described as a "preying mantis with a terminator smile." she behaved "as if the world was hers, and guys as well." the real-life bruni revels in her rep as a man-eater and a year ago said: "everyone knows that husbands are rarely stolen; you either know how to keep them or you don’t." no need to drag my crispy feet over those hot coals right now, lol, but i think we know what she meant.

and that, my friends, is the crux. she is someone who has everything. if she doesn't already have it and decides she wants it, she gets it. wives, lovers and the press can go fuck off. *everybody else*? those who can no longer smoke at the cafe, but play patanque on saturdays and dutifully make love to their epouse a few times a month when she says ok, marvel at the latitude. that resentful pruned-up epouse? she hates a self-determined woman like bruni and thus hates sarkozy for wanting her.

me? i have had my man-eater days. i have cut my swath and have nothing left to prove. i have willingly lain on blazing brimstone and then got what i thought i'd never have -- the perfect man for me. one who always wants more. :)

jesus and satan are brothers

the southern baptist church (sbc, k?) is telling its faithful this is a tenet of the mormon faith. not a correct explanation, but as far as i'm concerned they're melding into evil twins, and moroni can go pound sand.

huckabee is soaring in the polls, sucking rudi's wind and nipping at romney's heels. we have a sbc minister, with a nutter of a son, (have you seen the family christmas card? gah! they all look like they are on a day-pass from the home. grown-ups in matching sweaters? are you kidding me? it's like a demented obese version of the williams family) a grand-standing fascist with estranged kids, multiple ex-wives, affairs, and felonious friends on his payroll, not to mention that pesky pro-choice/pro-gay agenda, and a telegenic, flip-flopping, political worm of a mormon. a mormon.

right here, right now:

"congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

the first 16 words of the american bill of rights, 1791. yeah, the witch-hunting/hanging puritans got lots of press, but most founding fathers were of the rational secular deist or atheist bent. they saw the rolling heads that resulted when the country's ruler ran the church, and the empty state coffers when the papists ran amok. let's not displace authority to another plane where no body is accountable. separation of church and state. quake and shake all you want. craft perfect chairs, be celibate, don't lift a musket or eat mutton. hell, writhe and speak in tongues. god is not in charge. a wealthy white man is. k, all good?

fast forward to now. the *leader of the free world* (has any presidential reference become more shameful?) truly believes he works under the hand "of a just and faithful god." yup. he thinks god speaks directly to him. under a different lineage and in a long ago era, he might have felt a very itchy noose around his breaking neck. instead, he rails against those who follow another god just as strongly, yet in opposition. he cannot see it's a geographical divide, not a philosophical one. jihad? crusade? call it what you will, but everybody just wants to kill everybody else in the name of their god and his rightness. welcome back to the middle ages.

the dog-and-pony show that is the current presidential race was WAAAAY too much too soon, but months ago i remember the childish glee of, "raise your hands if you DON'T believe in evolution." palms shot up in the air. (they must have run out of time for, "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!") like, 80 years later, we're now in a time warp and fighting the scopes monkey trial!!!! all these home-schoolers turning back the clock and throwing out the books. gah.

my mother is extremely conservative and voraciously catholic, yet has no trouble rationalizing that god controls evolution. she doesn't need proof, she has faith. follow?

romney, last week, in his supposed sermon on the mount: "freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." the first part of that makes my eyes bleed.

is there another *1st world* country where religion has become a merit badge for running for office? worse still, membership to a crank religion that disputes science? any flat-earthers or moonies running for parliament someplace?? uh, NO.

long before the roman empire collapsed, pundits decried its demise. lead in the air and water, distracted despots, unchecked greed and overextension of the empire's resources loomed deadly. and so they were.

give a hand

we're in the midst of a nor'easter here today. i had to work very early. less-than-excellent adventure trying to dodge plows in a white-out and make my way from the train to the restaurant -- normally a 15-minute walk. all the suv-driving idiots made sure to slush, slush, slush me. i was soaked and frozen by the time i got there. only to get the phone call to turn right around, we were closed for the day, lol.

on my way home, still beset by daggers of sleet and stabbing wind, i watched a guy on crutches whose right leg had been amputated from the knee down. he was really struggling because the path was so slippery and uncertain. he wasn't wearing gloves. he paused and was rubbing his red frozen hands. i offered him my big wooly pair. he declined, insisting he had some and we went back and forth. "you're beautiful, bella, thank you," and he continued the other way.

i tried, you know?

america's game

our crispy feet haven't wandered much into sports, but i've got family ties, personal acquaintance, owner's fervid interest, and pop-culture-junkie bright eyes, so more than time, huh?

mitchell report today, and already conspiracy talk of why so few dirty sox. mo vaughan was too long ago. clemens looks to be clean while in boston. eric gagne? never mind an asterisk, we all wish we could just wite-out him off last year's roster completely. like official state photos from the stalin era. comrade was there, but, uh-oh ... snip -- poof -- next stop siberian gulag ! i heard murmurs about my man varitek and rushed home to look. phew. no whiff on those big thighs. oh, yes they grew to mighty oaks from all the squats. ;)

mitchell, although willing to name names, was careful to remind that many of these findings were old, and not a current reflection on certain players or the game. how much brow-beating went on before this thing came out? same guys who had the brick-bats before the 9/11 report got released? the players' rep said, "gee, maybe we should have done something sooner." uh, hello? alice in wonderland is on the phone. there can be no sooner if there is no now.

just like madonna can say she's never gone under the knife, mlb can cry wolf all night long about the dope. look at pix from the early 80s when these guys actually became athletes (as opposed to guys like mantle and martin who drank and sometimes played ball) and 2000+ pix. they went from strong to monstrous.

all my life i've known athletes. my grandfather was a scout (yeah, yeah, an excuse to get away from the 5 kids and wife and hang and booze and have affairs with glamorous babes -- not a bad one, eh?) and that meant i got toted to his bar or they were drinking whisky and beer at the house. those guys washed up early and often, and most wound up strapped, unlike my stock-broker grandpa. later, venues of employ and influence brought me into contact with all sorts.

sports have never been clean. yeah, i cry when i watch "the natural", and my grandfather knew both billy jurges and eddie waitkus. (family legend claims he was there right after waitkus got shot.) black sox, hank greenberg, jackie robinson, pete rose, the sox being the LAST team to diversify, bouton's tell-all "ball four". all ugly. all of it. baseball has always been a business. why are people shocked by this?

over here, we've got michael vicks shuffled off to the big house. he bank-rolled a dog-fighting ring and personally killed some. why doesn't the nfl just come right out and ban him? most corners agree this is beyond the scope of jock deviancy. i'm not prepared right now to go into the racial divide on it, cuz it exists, in my kitchens and with people like jaime foxx. most rational folk admit this is a horror. he pled out. he's not denying. he had promise. he had a bunch of good games and one great game. his hubris got the best of him. he will be in jail more than 2 seasons and be nearly 30 when released. "the longest yard"? um, not. he's so extra dirty, yet the nfl knows he will remain semi-marketable when he gets out, so they have yet to cut him loose.

what was accomplished by the list of names? about 100 guys get tarred. testimony and accusations came from a very small group of suppliers and skin-poppers. as hateful as they may be, why do guys like clemens and even bonds have to bear the brunt? does anybody really think it wasn't/isn't a majority of players indulging? just look at them, for god's sake.

where is the disincentive to dope? not in gajillion dollar paychecks. not with an admin that looked the other way for years while ad revenue skyrocketed. not even with the real and short-term likelihood of an early and ugly death. all these footballers in their 50s coming forward with brains of multiply-concussed mush might have some advice to offer. did lyle alzado or that homocidal-suicidal wwf guy get buried with a phone in their grave? they might warrant a call.

mlb cannot be trusted to police itself. it hasn't, it won't. milk and honey from the golden goose, and a river runs through it, lol. penalty backlash is pointless. selig and his minions turned a blind eye, so it seems beyond irrational to demonize the few that got bagged. let the dust settle fast. talk about "from this day forward." if they choose to, guys can get clean over the summer.

the tests have to be truly random. what's right? one strike? two, and you're out? i'm thinking it's like enron and adelphia and what should have happened there. take their assets. everything. (give vicks' money to a pit bull rescue society -- they sure need it.) forbid these guys from playing, coaching, consulting or commenting. SHUN THEM. like the amish and the puritans. spurn and turn them out. if some college kid sees a young starter or 2 or 10 going down over a piss test, career ruined, he will think twice. hey, it worked out for roger williams, right?

OR...

allow the doping. let these guys blow up into zeppelins of power. we see the bulging pockets that result. maybe we should stop playing pretend? just don't skimp on the retirement medical bennies.

how soon before the new version of "american gladiator" actually puts a guy in the ring with some lions and bears? cross it with ultimate cage fighting and i think we have the new sport for the next decade.

take what you need

no rant on marxism and i'm prepared to avoid aphorisms for the rest of the post.

recently, i read an essay by a writer who has adopted a chinese baby. have lap-top will travel. she realized she could truly live anywhere, so pulled up stakes from manhattan and moved to beijing.

besides the obvious mishaps and mayhaps of settling into a culture where she didn't speak the language, she was struck by the comparative austerity of her neighbors' lives. although in a firmly prosperous area, her american perceptions of consumption were severely challenged. there is a man who sells string. unlike here where we buy a spool that likely gathers dust in the garage or junk bin, her neighbors buy only the length they need. she could not find paper towels and was perplexed until realizing the facile waste of them. her refrigerator was smaller than her tv. well, the tv she brought from nyc.

besides all the blather about reducing our environmental footprint (gah, i don't own a car, gimme a break already, OK??) i have been increasingly conscious of what i *buy*. penury may be my not-so-new mother, but i'm always trying to weigh want vs. need vs. waste. shoes and bags long ago fell off the list, but even when it comes to "essentials" i've never been good at paring down.

today i went foodshopping. those of you who know me realize this does not mean the shaw's. ;) it was haymarket day and i also planned on visiting my north end butcher, so i get the added feel-good bonus of keeping it local, ya know? it was sunny and mild and crowded and there was lots of jostling and jamming and god only knows how many languages. old harry the cheese guy, fish waving, banana hawking and lots of cigarette smoking over the lemons and melons, lol. as long as i've lived here, i've always liked it there. flirty dirty old men call you "bella" and give you free figs and mean ladies make you buy 2 bunches of asparagus when you only want one. uh, ok, so, skip the broccoli then, lol.

it used to be all italians -- hell, that same guy has been giving me bonus stuff for nearly 20 years, lol. (yeah, extra garlic for me, but where did his hair go!) now there also lots of asians and a bunch of new meat guys. they sell pork, so they are not halal, but the shops are spotless, the meat is pristine and includes cuts i just cannot find elsewhere, the prices are rock-bottom and they are friendly! like, not just, "hey white lady, you have money..." but "halloooo, how you are? do you see something i get?" lol. it was great. today nearly swore me off my name-sake shop except for wasabi peas and tea, i do declare. i may not be ready to wrassle a goat neck, but the g.c. will be getting some new delectables.

it was one of those days when i wove myself back into the fabric of my city and my life. too often i let that fray when the bastards get me down. i saw proprietors, locals and gangsters i've known forever and everybody had a kind word. i helped tourists with their maps. stepped on and elbowed, i remained calm and even laughed with a guy who spoke no english over the absurdity of some broad in a burka with her double-wide stroller shoving between the stalls!

even with avocados and the exotic red watercress, i spent less than the federal poverty weekly guidelines for food. there's even some extra in case the g.c. decides to materialize. it would have cost me 3 or 4 times more at the big box, and they don't have the red cress!!

ya know... sometimes all you need is a day off.

bullies and helicopters

a little girl in missouri killed herself a few weeks back, after an on-line romance turned sour. a *dreamy* boy she'd never met in meat-life suddenly became a bully. she logged off and hung herself in her closet. turns out the boy was a 47-year old neighbor -- mother of a girl spurned by the now dead one. when the bereaved parents learned this twist they took sledgehammer and axe to a fooseball table they'd been storing for the apparently crazy neighbor lady.

there are so many levels of what the fuck on this i don't know where to go.

bullies have been around since man clanned up. "i'm not your friend anymore" has been a girl's platonic cleaver since shortly after the clan got verbal, i'm guessing.

when did parents become so loony? we all remember the cheerleader's mom -- which to me seemed a peculiarly texan/southern cultural phenom. there would have been no plot over a chess club snub, but don't dare get in the way of becky sue on the homecoming float.

a friend who works as a professor has many tales of frantic parents bullying him about progenies' grades. several mothers of my staff call and drop in on a regular basis. mind you, these girls are in their mid-20s. their moms have also called in late or sick for them.

my friends who stay-at-home complain about the pace of their week, shuttling kids to and fro gymnastics, peewee football, dance, riding, soccer, french lessons, blah blah. a single-income fuels this extracurricular whirlwind, plus the second gas guzzler to get there. these women, smart and quick-witted all, have put aside everything that is themselves. when i got to junior high, my mother was able to stop working. by then it mattered little because i'd been a latchkey kid so long. in first grade, my mother was already at work when it was time for me to get up and out for school. "you have to do this on your own, ok, little noodle?" so i did and always made my bed too, lol.

never has one of my friends said "go play," when we are on the phone or i have been visiting. the kids are right THERE, with their usual barrage of kid stuff. the mom is used to it, but ya know what? i'm trying to visit *you*. there should be a line between grown-up time and kid-time. when did that get erased? i read somewhere that it's a very recent development in western culture that parents play with their children -- on the floor with barbie or battleship. that "seen and not heard" bit didn't just mean at the dinner table. whenever i wailed, "mom, i'm booooored," i usually got, "you have to make your own fun." i had no lack of affluent amenities, ya know? it was also a bigger message for the future.

my dna line is done, but i'm sympathetic to wanting the best for your kids. really. to have them excel and prosper. what i do have serious trouble with is all these folks who now seek personal validation through their small fry. they run to kiss the boo-boo, yet miss the really big cut. how did that missouri mom not see that her daughter was so tragically invested in a boy she'd never met? her kid was on meds, ffs. the boot kick that he was a hoax is nearly besides the point. how did that other mom think her on-line hijinks were acceptable? kids change alliances all the time. how will they learn inter-personal dynamics? tit-for-tat on their behalf? good grief, get a life. your own, i mean.

blackhawk, down.

quotable

love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. what you will receive in return varies. but it really has no connection with what you give. you give because you love and cannot help giving.

~~katherine hepburn

yup.

:)

all u can eat

i hold an expectation that people are aware of others yet i know that's just silliness. i realize too that my standards of public behavior are not universal. tonight i'm gonna limit this to: eating on the mbta.

it's dirty, smelly and usually crowded. it's infested with rats, bugs and often reeks of homeless guy pee. how is that a place you wanna eat?

if it's rush hour, you will likely have to stand and be smushed. does that seem a good place to bring a snack? is it something pungent? does it need 2 hands or utensils?

i have no problem with cups of coffee or tea. soda in the morning grosses me out, but hey, i guess it's caffeine. i can tolerate bagels, muffins... maybe donuts, but why would anybody ever eat one to break fast? yuk. nuts, pretzels, candybars... i'm all about the unobtrusive.

recently:

girl standing up eating cheez whiz nachos out of a plastic to-go shell. near-by riders trying to avoid getting their hair in her mess.

2 girls with an open pizza box on the seat in front, stuffing their stoned faces.

old lady with a plastic bag holding something fried and droopy that needed a fork and lots of wiping her face with her sleeve. it smelled like stewed old goat.

gaggle of guys with sausage sandwiches.

assorted college kids with burger schwing/mcslop stuff that stunk to bejeesus.

family (tourists) with ice cream cones.

gah.

but this morning i saw a freakish thing. 7:30. she was already seated and eating a bagel with cream cheese. she looked big but whatevah. i was still too sleepy to read, so people-watched. she then licked off each finger of her eating hand and sucked her thumb with the determination of an infant. it was so disturbing i had to look away. and keep looking back. then she unwrapped a huge muffin. which she split and smeared with butter. licked her hand again and sucked her thumb some more. THEN pulled out a croissant, smeared THAT with cream cheese and downed that bit of caloric misery. a croissant with cream cheese? who'da thunk? then more thumb-sucking.

it was all in dunkin-donuts bags, so she had at least 10 bucks worth of processed worthless food in her system before the stock market opened. god only knows what she ate before she got on the t. her oral fixation was so disturbing i can't shake it. she was late 20s and nobody calls her on that thumb-sucking thing? ew.

i was happy about the apple in my bag. i was happy i can think of other things to suck with ardor.

apples and the carts they rode in on

yup. danglers and all.

some more inclined to stargazing might say it's because i'm a libra, but damn i prefer equilibrium. balance. i always hated being in the ferris wheel cart with somebody who just had to make it swing. the applecart may hit ruts, but why force the jostling?

anybody in that genome project splice some dna from restaurant owners yet? find the code for their specific brand of dickhead? my exposure to other types of owners is limited, so maybe it's more universal than i know. the week begins TODAY, and i still don't have my schedule. they all need to wring the bejeebus out of their underlings. consecutive days off are not even considered, weeks are 50 hours, (how did i miss that workplace culture memo and when, btw?) and now he's pencilling us all in for 60. we're on camera and punch a clock. he already knows exactly how much and when.

why does my particular niche, the skill-set for which i've been hired, seem to consistently befuddle? "oh, you've fixed it. ok, all set." there seems no comprehension of any organic process or potential. it's not a granite tombstone. oh, wait, lol, i guess it is.

"i know 2 months ago we agreed to this, but yeah, uh, not now." that piled on with the pointy stick e-mail of this morning just make me want to throw apples at him. then the bushel when it's empty. i get a very happy image of those angry trees in the "wizard of oz".

a pragmatic apple-lover reminded me i have to pick the cart i wish to ride. (mind you, this is a man who will only tolerate one variety of apple.) no, i don't prefer the road that's more difficult and we already had the fight about letting me do the thing for which he hired me. will it be a quarterly battle? cuz i hate that and i hate the petty mentality of it. lemme poke her and keep her off-balance. is that a technique that bears fruit with some? ever? there actually are other ways to prevent complacency.

i hate it.

my particular issues with authority can be put aside for just a second, because i have little problem with chain of command. hell, i know i don't want to be in charge and i don't think i'm smarter than him. he's been very successful for a long time -- despite his admitted craptastic people skills. what's at hand is the "because i said so" nonsense that makes owners get woodies. today it's delicious and tomorrow galas. rotten apples, either way.

i really want to try a new pie.

giving thanks

yeah, i know, it's a day late... i'm not on salary OR deadline here, k?
"thanksgiving" 1623, mather the elder (pater familias for generations of new england's most powerful men) gave special thanks to god for the devastating smallpox plague which had wiped out a mess of wampanoags. he praised god for destroying "chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth", i.e., the pilgrims.

irresistible aside: one mather, born 16 years later and named *increase*, stated the reason for his first name was "...the never-to-be-forgotten increase, of every sort, wherewith god favoured the country about the time of his nativity." good on the whities to go forth and multiply --increase had 10 kids -- but let's not allow the natives anymore of that, even though we're appropriating their fall ritual and they brought most of the grub. yo, yo, plymouth bay bronx cheer, squanto!

context.

i haven't had turkey at home since college. phooey on the dog and pony show. i always plead work -- most years i do -- and at last it no longer matters. i even volunteer now. hell, i know some folks like their families, and GASP! their families like them!! whatevah. happily, we were closed and my day was in the anti-rockwell style i'm starting to make as my own tradition.

met a dear friend at a swanky hotel bar. have i mentioned how much i love them? the pretty-cute-doorman catches my eye sincerely while bringing me in and saying hello, the soaring atrium, the expensive leather chairs and the crystal flutes, the gorgeous transiency of the guests, what's not to love? joint was formerly a jail and the granite walls, iron bars and much tonnage of beams remain. eleventy bajillion bucks later, the place is drop-dead. friend treated to one of my favorite rose champagnes which was gobs of strawberries and biscuits. sunny walk over the salt and pepper bridge. again, a place i cherish, and even moreso on a brisk fall day. met more friends for a movie, "margot at the wedding". jennifer jason leigh and nicole kidman were fearless. hateful, horrible, crazy. hilarious. not everybody got it quite so much, though, lol.

my heart racing all through, then speeding up even more, cuz it must be nearly ending. it's a 90-minute run-time. what will happen? will anything? i can't just jump up and check my phone. rude! manners, miss. gah. yeah, ok, i checked my voice-mail in the bathroom stall. where my head rocketed right off my neck and i went stoopid happy. and scared. but i didn't throw up. at least i left the john to call back. :)

made the connect. explained to friend-wife (lol, i knew her when she swore she'd never marry. back then, she was older than i am now.) as succinctly as i could: ya know that guy? well, he's back and he's getting divorced and today will be the first time i've seen him in over a year. so it's gonna be quick. she's smart enough not to ask.

entering the lobby, they all wondered if he... he already was. a year's worth of sadness fell off me. his hands took my shoulders so gently and his chin touched my head. it was right. he looked handsome. he looked tired. i love him in that rugby shirt. i could barely look at him for fear i'd crack open.

chit-chat-banter. chance encounter with a nice-not-crazy-chef we all know. it's thanksgiving and her son's b-day. why the hell is she moving furniture and working? lol. good energy all around. pictures taken, jabs and jokes shared. good stuff.

i... do... not... have... the ... slightest... idea... what... to... do!!!!!!!!!!!!! GAAAH. we have to go.

we went.

within minutes, i was home. rituals can be more powerful than we secular moderns like to believe. no words. actions. i haven't felt that right and secure in ages.

women cry when we are sad, AND when we are happy. i try to be mindful to alert about the latter, lol.

much like the pox fall-out, another's loss is my gain. i'm still wrapping my head around that. catholic guilt? really? c'mon. goddammit.

however, i am profoundly thankful. :)

just like...

well, i'm not gonna say "riding a bike" because i have a snarky witness to that episode.

duck to water? better, and less likely to concuss myself.

and it was. no page in miss manners about how to proceed but we both knew where we wanted to be and what we wanted to be doing. i could barely look at him, because i knew i would dissolve into tears. my heart was racing, pounding. could he hear it too? lol. it was the kind of moment where in another life, i'd have burst into song and dance.

it was just like before. natural, passionate, real. no words needed. then i was in his arms, my head on his chest. the place i thought i would never again be. it was the deepest and most simple comfort i have felt in a very long time.

a few times he asked, "do you remember..." i had to say "no," and we realized what different paths we'd traveled in the last year -- him digging; me burying. what he was looking for and what i was hiding hasn't changed anything between us.

there is something rare about finding another who accepts you just as you are. then still wants you anyway. i am happy i never let go. and VERY happy he came back before i went all miss havisham.

take 2.

try to remember

our memories are the only paradise from which we can never be expelled ~~ jean-paul richter

now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
~~ bruce springsteen

the mind is a dangerous place. when i finally allowed and reorganized involuntary bodily functions like breathing and digesting, i knew i had to do something with the pile of gorgeous memories. my own emotional elgin marbles. i couldn't sort it -- it was too huge and the pointing too secure. i couldn't share it -- an abandoned mistress' heartbreak? HAHA!!! i couldn't give that away to an emotional anorexic.

i couldn't allow myself to still hold any of the goodness. other break-ups i could say, *this* was good, *that* was very not good. how could i codify, qualify, something neither of us wanted to end? something that was always good?

i could not let go. if i released even a bit, it would have ALL blown up.

a.d. 79. mt. vesuvius went kaplooey.

it had been the elite's peaceful bit of beachfront skyline for more than 1000 years. at a very impressionable age i visited the ruins at pompeii and the barely begun dig at herculaneum. on display, in separate cases, were the helpless dog, (canis, sheesh, they all looked the same back then, lol) the man and the lovers. all buried deeper and deeper over the next several hundred years by subsequent eruptions.

we walked. saw the baths, the brothel, the marketplace, the likely town hall. we saw the gorgeous mosaics and sculptures in the courtyards and foyers. it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine padding in sandals through the dusty summer streets nearly 2000 years before to get bread and that era's equivalent of the sunday times.

so some dotty brits showed up with hammers and tossed some pound notes at victor emmanuel? hello, context? that lone man trapped by lava? maybe he was horrid or infirm and his wife abandoned him to the rushing melt? those "lovers"? were they hateful spouses trapped in battle at just the wrong moment? to a wistful victorian it seemed romantic, but could have been a murderous take-down, ya know?

since that doozy vesuvius has blown up massively about 30 times, killing thousands and smothering rebuilt villages. the history and memories got pushed further down by sheer force of nature.

he remembers details i could not allow myself to hold. i had to bury them to rebuild. it's especially painful for me because i enjoyed my mental file so much. it allowed for a seamlessness that i truly prefer. i will err on the side of caution, but he knows i have no engineer. it's just me winging the do-over.

words fail me

hard to believe, i know. :) snappy come-backs and witty parries are second-nature to me and when comfortable i have no problem with forthrightness nor insecurity about the validity and strength of my opinions.

maybe i'm socialized badly in one aspect, because when another is in deep sorrow or grief i grapple with finding the right words. "i'm sorry." such a banal platitude. *i* haven't done anything, and it seems such a trite way to express empathy.

a dear friend recently had to break some very bad news to his family. "good luck"??? ack. seems a more appropriate wish when somebody is pole-vaulting. or playing the lottery. it wasn't bad luck that got him to this place, it was an inevitable consequence. "i hope it isn't terrible." another ack. of course it's terrible. dad's leaving. the family is cracked. this is not to dismiss the fortitude and resilience of children. but those are words a parent never wants to have to say.

one of the ways i express intimacy with a man is sexually. ironic to some readers, i suppose, since i fuck quite satisfactorily with only lust in play. when he is in me, over me, inhabiting me, he has me physically and psychologically. he takes me. he possesses me. it's a silent and primal communication that is marvelous in its eloquence.

some things just must wait to be said.

jesus wept

dagnabbit, it's raining in georgia. once again the lord, your co-pilot, your savior, your what-would-he-do-go-to-guy is the quintessential micro-manager. can't just be environmental pressures and cumuli and winds and such having a fortuitous meet. seeing the wet glowing gubner in the downpour made me laugh so hard i snorted.

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

she was droning. as always. in that kill-a-canary-pitch (yeah, waaaay higher than my drunkest wavery soprano EVER) sing-songy end everything with a question mark way? "so i went to the party and i was early ( i don't need to ask what party. i don't care and she'll just keep talking either way.) and i had some pumpkin ale and it was really good but i only drank half cuz then i had a sour apple martini but then i found my beer and had some more pumpkin ale and then i had another sour apple martini and then somebody gave me some amaretto, wow that's really good, i never had it before, and then i had some, not too much, but some more pumpkin ale... i don't know why i don't feel good today..." really, all that and you don't feel so good? i'm shocked you're not in an insulin coma.

i realized i was clenching my fist, rhythmically banging the podium so i did not reach right down her throat and rip out her voicebox.

i felt like a lynx in a trap. but just my flesh was caught, not bone. i knew i could get away. i just had to propel. !!!! BOING!! i have to make THIS call...

she is one waste of carbon. ack. my snobbery is happily fed knowing she grew up in, and her parents still reside in, a trailer. that she is going bald. that she drinks lots of rockstar and redbull. that her always splayed open (cheap) purse is overflowing with scratch tickets, menthol camels (seriously), breath mints, a rat's-nested hairbrush and some pink-tinted drugstore perfume. that she wears jessica simpson shoes. (who knew? really?) that she thinks *rich* people shop at marshall's. that "anyways" and "irregardless" and "acrosst" are accepted in her vocabulary. that she has never spent more than $30 on A COAT. that i am 100% positive she has never asked me, even in pointless rhetorical fashion, "how are you?" her ailments, her aches, her peculiar and exaggerated lethargy defined by marathon sessions of sleep, where she sleeps through dozens of phone calls... besides tossing off that she is likely clinically depressed, i have met few people who lack dynamism as severely as does she. she is a black hole of energy suck.

when dancing about my new and improved gypsy status for the company, i was met with much dismay from the staff. mucho. i was surprised, really. i don't care if they like me, so it never occurred to me they do, lol. out came the truth of how, yeah, they go drinking with her, but they don't like her for all the usual reasons that befall a narrow, ignorant, petty cunt. she favors the boys; she is two-faced; she regularly throws people under the bus; she's lazy; etc. haha! how do you really feel, kids? it was a torrent.

the thorn in the bubble is that she is a pet of the owner. he had her sister previously and groomed her, and now is doing this one. she is good at a few things (i'm not a total bitch of denigration, k ?) and by virtue of longevity knows the customers and the owner better than most. he's flung some mistruths my way that i know came from her. when under the big huge greyhound bus tire i can't/won't muster much defense. ack.

my experience with women is purposely limited. i never can be sure if these women gravitate to my industry or so many women are just this way. i do know it's why i prefer men.

a prayer

the middle south is in the midst of its worst drought ever. potable drinking water, er... red alert. . ( a bit ironic that a good many of their neighbors were under water just two years ago. how many residents of georgia, tennessee, alabama and around thanked their god they stayed dry after rita and katrina?)

much national news of the regional variety flies right by me, but this trouble i remember from months ago. fractured dessicated earth and farmers wiping tears while realizing the failure of this season nearly before it began. land they'd held for generations approaching utter ruin.

where i'm a goin' with this, is that the water didn't dry up overnight.

so lemme see... you're the governor. nah. dah gubnuh, right, y'all?

aaaah do declare:

"i say, you must only water your lawns three days a week."

the green fucking bane from hell. just like their parched friends in the west. brutal climates where everybody should just quit the fight and xeriscape. nope. jane and joe doe still have the suburban idyll pic of a mowed lawn and boxwoods and blooms. the whole conceit of which began with the purse of a monarch in moderate and relatively stable climate zones. it never scorched and snow was a rare friendly veil at versailles or windsor, ya know? as a matter of course to beat the heat, the locals *need* a pool too.

but americans have a sense of manifest destiny about EVERYTHING. whether it's fast food, gasoline or water. if it's there, i can have it. i should have it. it's mine. i deserve it. i work hard, don't i? gaaah.
doesn't take an environmental cartographer to decode this, now does it?

rain still does not fall, restrictions are tightened a bit, yet folks still turn on the hose. god forbid they let the grass do its own bit of self-preservation and brown out. gasp!! what will jimmy-bob and juney across the street think? apparently not that you're remotely conscious of a dire situation, but that you're being a bastard neighbor with an eyesore front yard.

this from a georgia pol:

"We've learned from this what a blunt weapon the Endangered Species Act has become," said state Rep. John Linder. "We need to understand this lake was created not for mussels but for people."

the *lake* wasn't formed to shelter some lotus-blossom mollusk. the main priority is to generate hydropower at a plant in florida. ahem. maybe if them folk downstream changed the settings on their central a/c units and turned off the lights at the fucking 24/7 super wal-marts... sorry. i was having a night fit...

at last, though, the governor has figured out the solution. he is the leader of the state, after all. he will have a prayer vigil. yup. he will fucking pray for rain. i bet as a boy he laughed and laughed at the legends and folklore of native americans and their fireside rituals. moccasins and mescal. those crazy red heathens -- hoo-aah! however as a good baptist, he knows god will provide. pray, brothas and sistahs, pray.

there is a school of thought about which one may see either side of the coin: "we get the leaders we deserve." the intellectual descendants of jefferson, franklin, hamilton and adams, et al would be parrying and trying to do the *right and good thing*. those of you who know me, know i don't mean just about the water. not so long ago, marshall, clayton and kennan had a grand view. their actions and success made the united states the most respected nation on the globe.

look where we stand fifty years later. the self-termed *greatest generation* golfs and golden-years in well-funded retirement, only to see us scorned by the same countries for whom they sacrificed and fought to save.

"we get the leaders we deserve."

pray, my brotha. pray.

in other words...

along with "needless to say", it gives english professors eyebleeds. ya know, they hate the premise of that preface, cuz just say what you mean in the first place. internal red pencil -- edit, edit, edit.

however, in love, words can be the little pings of bee-bees or the brutal deadly shred of an uzi barrage. they can miss the barn by a mile, or hit the heart dead-on.

with the g.c., i always did my best to be circumspect. it was part of my sense of place and always compounded by our subterfuge. on both sides, i think, much went unsaid to not blow upon the house of cards. he had his natural inclination towards protestant stoicism and i had my throbbing feral panic of being abandoned. there was the secret triad with its shared burden of not wanting to hurt the unwitting third. there was the selfishness of knowing not to rush open the doors. don't rock the boat, baby. don't tip the boat over...

(am i putting words in his head? dunno...prolly... i just have lots of 'em...)

so now what? do i allow a new language? no. no. no. my words, my tone, the effort i take to express myself clearly and respectfully (no flying off the handle) matter. to me. ALOT. there is a grace and kindness in that i will not abdicate.

i know also that he is in the most profoundly painful period of his life. uncertainty, judgements, failed expectations, new dynamics. his own holy huge hell of now what the fuck?

i'm filled with so many questions and an agony over what lies beneath. i cannot shake how selfish that is, but at the same time it fills me to sickness with rigid fear. some things i am terrified to ask, but maybe, just maybe, now it's different? maybe now i can ask, and be allowed to know?

my mom always said, "you don't get if you don't ask." later, i realized you might not always get what you want when you ask. but maybe that was better. even when it hurt. the "no" was better than still wishing for the pony.

i don't know anything anymore. it's like being on an unpiloted probe to saturn -- very cold and very uncertain.


Fly me to the moon
let me sing among those stars
Let me see what spring is like
On jupiter and mars
In other words, hold my hand
in other words, baby kiss me
Fill my heart with song
Let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you
in way too many words... i still love you.

the raw and the cooked

one of the ways i often go about these ramblings is a header strikes me and i go from there.

the g.c. and i were much about the animal. the blood, the tears, the shit, the howls. getting to the base, the core -- flaying it open. it was never safe but it's impossible to explain how life-affirming it was, and how fiercely intimate. ever watch your lover shattered on the floor in agony by your own hand and then crawl to you for more? ever see the look in his eyes while he watches you break but writhe back into his arms? it's astounding.

i remember a period one summer when we always seemed to couple during thunder storms. the heavy august sky seemed so often to crash and crack while he grabbed me by the throat or the arms and took me. the air was savage and electric and we were too. strange to feel so connected to the elements on a fluffy duvet. we'd then lie there spent, and i'd just listen to that shushing rain and his beating heart. it was so simple. it was perfect.

now i am again going raw. it's a gradual ripping open and it's terrifying. it's been all stitched up!! no tidy embroidery and silken thread this, much more like sally in "the nightmare before christmas". tight enough to hold in the stuffing and that's all. he wants to reach in there again. i want it too. but common sense advises caution around those who might maul. even when they do it out of love. or ownership. or entitlement. even the whistling kid with the key to the cage and offering bloody steaks and tangerines steps gingerly around that napping brown bear.

we know all roads lead to lunch. maybe now an occasional off-ramp to dinner. out of self-preservation, i'm thinking the first plate will be something braised. dark and meaty, primal, wholly satisfying, but no blood. :)

hope

it's a four letter word. it floats. it can be abandoned. (right-o, all ye entering pirates!)

we can hope for pleasant weather when planning an apple-picking day. however, all we really can do there is pack a slicker if mother nature chooses otherwise. we can hope to win the lottery, but you know the old saw about the guy when at the pearly gates, confessed never having bought a ticket, right?

it can be a comforting plush toy or the prickly porcupine we dare not touch. it can be the thing we refused, which is not the same as *hopelessness*, because that implies the previous existence of its opposite.

it can be the voice on the other end offering just that. it can be the thing it takes profound courage to accept.

the source

today somebody sent me some new amy winehouse. mostly, i like her, even if her sense of doomed sensationalism is trumping her talent. her drug- and booze-soaked escapades (and those skanky ballet slippers, sheesh) are getting all the attention, while she can't quite make it to the stage.

before the bulimia and the beehive really took over, she was wry, self-effacing and comfortable with herself. it's really funny:

f*** me pumps

hello!! "at least your breasts cost more than hers"! it's full of howlers.

so i got her new version of the classic "cupid". but, um, sam cooke and johnny nash got there way first. c'mon. she sounds like a cartoon of herself and the genre. maybe she was drunk? she certainly was trying too hard. cuz when you hear the sam, it's silk.

full disclosure: i have spent an inopportune hour trying to link sam cooke on youtube to my chicken feet. mother of god will not be implored to help. let's just leave it at how gorgeous we know the original mcdreamy sounded.

and how sometimes it's good to go back.

time suck redux

“People did not really talk about their work. They talked about their long weekends.”

a quote in today's ny times from france's new finance minister -- her impressions when she returned from some time spent working as a lawyer in chicago.

she and sarkozy are determined to ramp up the french economy and shake free the sloth-in-amber attitude of 35-hour work-weeks and long vacations by the seaside. a languid quality of life held as a birthright by most french. they excel at finding the muster to strike, however, lol, and today will be out in force against american-style encroachments on time spent in cafes or playing petanque.

i am on a 7-day a week tether to my job. constant e-mails and phone calls. (remember why i did NOT want a cellphone?) followed by snippy disapproval when i don't respond immediately. sometimes i'm in the shower or at the movies, ffs. i do not have 2 consecutive days off. it will be one year before i receive ONE WEEK of paid vacation. i shell out considerable cash each month for insurance.

she wants them to be more like us, and i want to be more like them. maybe i'd feel differently if i was watching my indoor lap pool being built. but, uh, not.

phooey.

words

powerful stuff.

i've been wooed by them. brought to tears by their sheer beauty. been made to laugh and challenged to see over a foggy hill. i like to think i have done the same for those in my life.

they can create misunderstandings, both small and profound. i confess i don't do *jobspeak* very well. please just say what you mean. i have run afoul of this more than once with colleagues and bosses, and in hindsight still don't appreciate the level of lotus-blossom sensitivity people bring to the shop each day. i have learned to preface with, "may i just be direct?", or mirror back, "am i understanding you as saying *x*?" but i rankle at and resent the extra effort. sigh. i have yet to find a salaried hermit position. 'nother thread, that. lol.

i have also been stunned by their power. i have been gagged and disemboweled, a useless husk, tossed down to the floor as by a titan. i have crashed into the wall of subterfuge. they taunt, they goad, they lie. they spin the room so fast to make you sick. they have been used as blunt weapons against me and one dear to me in what looks to be a war of attrition.

lucy's aunt and uncle climbed down from the canopy, wandered the savannah and over time, lil hairy hominids set up camp. for thousands of years, epics of victory and loss, the wonder of the skies and the honeyed stories of how we came to be were passed down. the spoken word leaves a trace only in memory.

with machines we now can speak and be heard even through another's absence. in the late hours, we hear the voice so long silent, and without control our water glass crashes to the floor.

yet remembering long-ago warnings of doom and feeling the squeeze of a not-so-rusty tinfoil hat, we look at something that fell from the ether and It Doesn't Read Right. wrong format; at best a rhetorical question, at worst a poke with a cruel stick. all i feel is uncertainty.

"i got the feeling that something ain't right...
clowns to left of me, jokers to the right,
stuck in the middle..." (intentional snip, dear readers...)

there are the three truths.

and there is what we want to believe.

maya's caged bird makes me terribly sad and cuts too close to bone. instead i begin my day with solitary emily:

"hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all."

:)

no surprise

he is getting divorced. it's no surprise to me and ultimately none to him either.

counseling, together and apart. books and late nights on-line. long emotional tirades about "what's wrong with you." trial separation. trial reconciliation. family meetings; in-laws and outlaws all with their 2 cents. friends and neighbors dumbstruck by lightning striking a golden couple. intellectually and philosophically such a good match. married when old enough to "know" the right thing when it came along. one would like to think.

"what really is best for the kids?" how much of a factor is personal contentment? happiness? validation from your spouse? when does her hurt finally end and the martyr robes come off?

yup. he did some shit things. yet in the last 15 months has tried mightily to set things to right. she cannot, will not put any of the past aside, nor will she accept the present and his mea culpa. his sincerely proffered "sorries" blow like dandelion fluffs in the wind of her unmitigated anger.

did she/he wake up one day and finally say, "enough"? was there a last straw or just an overdue admission of futility?

he swears he is fine. his writing feels better than in a very long time. he has moved out, and until coming east, saw the kids everyday. she is amicable and for neither is money an issue. he is hoping his visiting semester at yale turns into an offer to relocate from texas. lol, we both agree he's a much better fit into tweedy nerdy yale than trying to edumucate the barn-washers down there.

after dinner he asked me back to his hotel room. "no, i don't think so," rolled right off my tongue. his request came as no surprise, but my easy refusal did. the thread count at the ritz was a minor temptation, but i felt no desire for him. we have a long history of wanting the other at the *wrong* time.

i came home and took a long bath. it was good to see him. an excellent dinner with an old friend. sometimes it can be simple. i am grateful for that.

time suck

when i took this job, one consideration was my ability to get there. i moved back to the city to make my life easier. friends, cultural interests and *work* are all here. presumably anybody job-hunting factors in length of commute as part of the decision-making process.

during my initial forays for interviews i arrived easily and quickly. it lies on one of the more reliable lines that is less likely to be choked by students. so i took my local line off the island, made one transfer, read my book and it wasn't so bad at all.

cue to summer. construction. lots of it. shuttle buses. driven by union guys who had no idea how to get from here to there, having never driven the route. did the mbta even give them directions? did they just not bother to read them? although work was being done only between station f and r, or r and r, frequently, and with no warning or announcement, you were forced early off the train at station k and herded on another slow-moving bus that crawled through neighborhood traffic.

many weekends, "improvements" were being made on my local line, meaning now an initial bus ride. our infrastructure is collapsing, so a tunnel has been closed. this has meant a long and unscenic ride through more broke-down neighborhoods, out and away from our destination, over a bridge, circumnavigating our nexus in an unthinkable way.

who makes these routes? are the mbta honchos huddling over a ouija board and talking to the marquis de sade and the 3 stooges? "yeah, this'll hurt..." "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk." "why, i oughta..."

what should be a 6-minute ride to my connection can take an hour. factor in a bus on the other end, add on at least another 30 minutes. what should be a 45-minute trip, has often taken me more than 2 hours. yup. TWO HOURS. each way. pile that on to a 12- or 15 hour-day. yeah, that spells quality of life like little else.

last night i was traveling home late. 11:00-ish. got to my connection easily. no beer-soaked sox fans or throngs of drunken bc kids heading downtown to get drunker. yellow tape across the stairs: no train. upstairs to a bus. which traveled one stop. downstairs to the t. which traveled one stop. thank fucking god it at least brought me to the other side of the tunnel, so i could now walk home. the remaining brown people were shunted onto still another train, across the tracks to head further out.

i work a job i don't much enjoy. which pays barely enough to get by and certainly not enough to get ahead. with people whom i have nothing in common. i mentioned that on my day off this past weekend, i was going to see the new wes anderson movie and the new brad pitt movie (really stolen by casey affleck and augmented by a few craggy turns from sam shepard, but i digress.) i guess cuz there were no blue-screen special effects and no fart jokes in either, i was met only by blank stares. ffs, brad pitt. how could they be so unaware? yes, yes, it was a throwback to art-house 70s westerns, but still.

i never wanted to be a restaurant manager. ever. yet i dutifully took advice from somebody who'd never worked in the business. clenched tight the rcg's, believed him and thought i could make it better. feh.

lateral move this, out of financial duress. i put on a happy face though and don't complain. last time it took me 4 months to land a job. (at first i couldn't bear to look, while i repaired the inside compass.) so i'm starting to look now. pro-active.

my wset certificate is in the mail. passed with distinction, tyvm. however, what that buys in this city remains to be seen. we have yet to attain the sophistication where being a sommelier is much more than a hired monkey. the pay is terrible across the board. i buy for a company with combined sales of over $12 million, yet cannot afford cable tv. that shows respect, huh?

i know what i would *like* to do. who is out there who will pay me to do it? anybody? hello? anybody?

party pooper

balloons and ponies fell off my wish list a long time ago. for several years, i haven't been able to fete my friends, so stopped thinking they'd do it for me. except for that once, the gc decided it best to not acknowledge the day. (that *present* was beyond the scope of most; i've never discussed it.) last year i did spend it with some friends and despite my dark fragility, had a nice time. of course, the crazy aggrieved wife decided right then to take her martyr show on the road, so tossed me a lovely parting gift of shattering public humiliation. i'm sure she took rabid glee in ruining my day.

in fairness, lol, i wasn't forgotten and i did get some calls and cards today and had already decided to forgo dinner with the editor. he wanted to take me someplace nice (and i wouldn't have minded!) but tomorrow he leaves for spain on a trip i can't join and i just have to be out of here insanely early. it was a practical grown-up kinda decision -- you know, the kind i hate -- both skipping the trip and passing on tonight. tomorrow is a big day for me with the owner and i don't want to attempt it on too little sleep and too much wine.

it was a glorious fall day when i woke. my day *off*, i was anxious to get my work done and get outside. i'd been promised all the files by 10:00. by noon, still nothing, so had to cancel lunch with a friend. by 2:00, still nothing. i was fuming. i'd e-mailed and called several times already. finally arrived at 2:30. GAH! one is a mess and cannot be used. it takes the cow of a comptroller another 30 minutes to get me the proper file. day is basically over. i cannot make the appropriate arrangements with all my salespeople cuz it's too damn late so, more and unnecessary work tomorrow.

i rush through everything and run to the bank. it had just closed. i had planned a nice long walk, a movie and a quiet drink by myself. no, no and nope. not even enough cash to buy my t-pass, never mind wasting money on rides for fun.

instead i shop for dinner on the reduced produce rack and answer 7 calls from salespeople while i scope out the bin for deli ends. yeah. what a birfday and oh, the glamorous life of a corporate beverage director.

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my blog has been quiet this past month. frankly i'm sick of my own travails. i can't imagine the bore they must be to those unlucky enough to stumble in here. but there is a glimmer of light on the homefront and i'm already putting out feelers for a new job. mid-month i was badly blue and just wishing wishing for a different dynamic. yeah well, all those pennies in the well were money wasted. bootstraps, suck it up, all that. could be worse, right?

right?

all by myself

i don't mind it. i'm more used to it than not. for years, i've gone alone to movies, plays, openings and dinner; moved, near and far. the too frequent presence of another is so jarring i often feel like an ascetic monk.

my problems now are large, so it's easier to hermit rather than risk being caught out by a rude question. i was raised with a very strict code of what is acceptably polite conversation, but apparently lots of folks didn't have my mom.

pass the biscuits, please.