Grandma’s Pool
© The Author, 2006

From my steaming, dog shit littered, rinky-dink yard in Pontiac—an economically depressed skid mark of a city in suburban Detroit—Grandmas pool, about 40 minutes away in the dirt roads and heavy shade of rural Ortonville, held the shimery pure promise of cool, clean baptismal waters that I so deeply thirsted after. Covered in animal stink from the menstruating Doberman my dad kept penned in the kitchen, smeared with crumbs from last night’s fried chicken dinner, and my mouth seeping halitosis from the sudden disappearance of the toothbrush I kept at my dad’s while I was at my mom’s all week long, there was nothing I liked to hear more while at my dad’s house on summer weekends than to hear him belch out a waft of stale beer and say, “want to go to Grandmas for a dip in the pool?” Plus, at this point in time, my cousin who lived only one block away before her dad’s addiction got the best of the household finances, had moved into an empty upstairs bedroom at Grandma’s house; her parents lived in a ratty trailer camped in the far reaches of Grandma’s field.

Before I knew enough about environmentalism to be sickened by my dad’s enormous, rumbling, black diesel truck, I loved climbing aboard; it felt like escape, like running away, like being saved. The driver’s side door, in pink, rolling calligraphy read: The Big Kahuna. And before I knew enough to think that phrase was trashy and lame, I thought it was funny.

The silent drive to Grandma’s in The Big Kahuna got really good once the stoplights were left behind, only 15 minutes or so away from Grandma’s house. Trees gathered in full force, spattering shifting shade patterns onto the pavement below. The scent of honey and pollen and fresh cut grass overpowered the stench of my dad’s chew cup, sloshing poopey logs of tobacco in the driver’s side cup-holder. Farmers stood at the roadside with barrels of peaches, strawberries, and watermelons. Horses trotted regally, cows munched. Grandma’s house was on a dirt road, bumpy with potholes. From the spoils of a successful country-style restaurant, Grandma’s house also came with an orchard, a vegetable farm, barns, a huge wooded area for hunting, and most importantly, a beautiful bean shaped in-ground pool with a diving board and a waterslide.

Upon our arrival, my cousin would call to me from the lovely languid waters of the pool, “Truly!” Tumbling out of the car I raced up the brick pathway to meet her.

“Is it cold?” I stuck a grimy toe into the water.
“The water’s fine!” She called, before flitting underwater like a mermaid.
“I gotta change,” I called.
Surfacing, “Did you bring your suit?”
“No,” I said giddily, “It’s at my moms.”
“Good!’

Now, up until this point I have made no mention of a Grandpa at Grandma’s house. Partially this is because all of it—from the offensive negro jockey perched at the head of the driveway to every last green bean on each curling vine—had an innate sense of being owned by Grandma and all else who trespassed were merely visitors on her domain. But mainly I have not made mention of the Grandpa because he was at the restaurant or cutting the lawn for the entirety of our youth. This not to say that Grandpa was not a contributing factor to the joy of Grandma’s house. On the contrary, his white Hanes t-shirts that we were allowed to swim in if we forgot our suits made up a solid 25% of the total fun factor of Grandma’s house.

My cousin heaved herself over the edge of the pool and giggling, we tiptoed into the cool house to get some of Grandpa’s shirts to swim in. In the basement, seething with slap-happiness, my cousin shucked off her wet suit and I shimmied out of the food-stained clothes I had been wearing all weekend. We plucked warm Grandpa T-shirts from the laundry pile atop the drier and plunged our necks through the oversized holes before racing upstairs and outside to the pool.

At the pool, scrawny and goose-bumped beneath our Grandpa shirts, we waded into the water with a white cloud of cotton ballooning up around us. Up, up the cloth billowed; the deeper we waded, the more engulfed our faces and necks became, until, in one heart-shuddering moment, we braved the chill, plugged our noses, and went under, slicking the mass of cloth to our young bodies.

It is important to note that dressing a rangy, bone-thin child in the heavy clothes of a man before turning them loose to swim unsupervised is unadvisable. Grandma didn’t consider the danger because she hadn’t swam since she was eight, traumatized as she was after having been in a rowboat that tipped and spilled its passengers into muddy Alabaman waters, and our parents never objected because lord only knows where they went and what they did while we swam. But the danger, the struggle to keep afloat in the deep-end, without parents to save us, with the weight of ten pounds of wet cloth dragging us down, was part of the fun.

On this day, my cousin and I were playing our usual game of inventing dive poses. With the creaking diving board thudding beneath her lead-footed sprint, my cousin leaped from the board and into the air with her right arm out stretched, her chest lifted and heroic, her girl voice lowered and booming, “Superman to the rescue!” She sang, before hitting the water like a tank.

Before my cousin surfaced, I was already climbing up the metal pool ladder to do my shtick. With my cousin’s otter-like bobbing head as my only audience, I teetered onto the diving board with my stork legs. My nose turned up in mock-snobbery, pretending to hold a swishy cocktail, I spoke in a faux British accent, “Oh, what a marvelous party! And what lovely blue carpet you have!” My cousin was exhausting herself, treading water while laughing. Moving with what I imagined to be a posh air, I neared the edge of the diving board, “This carpet, this marvelous carpet—it almost looks like WATER!” And then I tumbled off the board, into the pool.

Surfacing with a lung fill of laughter, I found myself in a bubble of my own swim shirt. Somehow, air had gotten trapped in the shirt, which had peeled off my back and was now covering my head from behind. I could hear my cousin’s manic laughter from outside the strange chamber of my shirt bubble, which made me laugh in turn. But when I did, the air bubble collapsed, sticking the shirt to my face. Now I was scared. Treading water, trying to stay afloat with the mass of Grandpa’s shirt clinging to my face, my sides aching from all the contagious laughter, my legs tired of thrashing and the possibility of being drug under was suddenly, undeniably real to me.

“Help me!” I shrieked.

Seeing the contours of my face plastered with wet t-shirt proved too hysterical of a sight for my cousin. She continued to laugh uncontrollably as I struggled, willing every last fiber of my energy into cooperation, blindly groping the water for the edge of the pool. My face slicked with cloth, I began to whimper. The meek sounds of my pathos only goaded my cousin on further—now between her belly laughs came the airless noise of coughing up swallowed pool water. Things were out of control.

“I can’t see!” I wailed. My eyes began to burn, tears mixing with chlorine. I was alone in this, fighting against the clothes, the spectacle, and the endless landscape of water. I was the only one who could save me in a family where everyone else had enough of their own problems to contend with. We could laugh together always until the tables turned and it was one of us laughing at the other. For the relief. For the uncontrollable seize of it. We could not help it. It was how we were made.

My tiny waif of an arm finally slapped against the solid edge of the pool. I clung there for a time, thankful that my laughing cousin could not see my red, tear ravaged face beneath the ever-present bubble of Grandpa’s shirt. Once I calmed, my strength returned and I was able to worm myself out of the cotton trap, naked and alive, slicing through the water unburdened, free.

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Do you remember a moment when you learned something important?

::Random Tangent::
There is nothing like a new hair cut to make you feel a little less hideous. Wouldn’t you agree? The picture below is what some lovely and talented chica named Anna Marie at Salon Blue in Bucktown did to my head last night. While she is somewhat of a non-talker, her concentration pays off. Let her chop your locks, ladies and gents. And tip her well.

Sodium and Pit Stains
This month I’ve been on four airplanes, grimacing and letting bile flood my mouth during four landings. I’ve spent time in New York City and Washington DC, bonding with friends, developing professionally, and eating too much sodium.

This month I’ve spent far too much time in the office, earning money. And today, like a dumb ass, I spent some of that money on clothes. Eventhough I tell myself that it is normal, once one has a job that pays a reasonable amount, to purchase outfits that actually fit, are comfortable, and in line with ones profession, it is still a difficult thing for me to put down the money for them. I feel much more beautiful when partaking in my usual activity of squirreling away money in the savings account. But then again, I am pretty excited to trash some of those rotting, pit-stained dress shirts I’ve been wearing with embarrassment for some time now. That’s right, I said it: PIT STAINS. After spending the last two summers in a sweltering, un-air-conditioned apartment, it is no wonder that I needed new spring/summer clothes for work: my old ones were pretty rank looking.

This month I have not spent enough time in the grocery store. The basement communal laundry room is a distant memory. My jogging time is down to a scant average of three days a week. And I have some foggy notion that prior to this month, I once kept a blog…do any of you, my lovely and patient readers remember anything of the sort?
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What has been occupying you as of late?

Gay comic-guide editor or Editor of gay comic guide?

Here is a puzzle for those grammar skeptics out there that just might convince you that grammar and sentence structure does indeed have a profound effect on the meaning of a sentence.

Question: What is the difference between a “Gay comic-guide editor” and an “Editor of a gay comic guide?”

Answer: the first editor is gay and the second editor is my husband.

This week, Shaun had an article about him in an arts and culture magazine called Time Out Chicago. The article praised Shaun’s recent editorial project, the 2006 edition of Prism Comics: Your GLTB Guide to Comics. For those of you who might not know what GLTB is, it is an acronym for “Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual.” The Prism Guide is an annual publication dedicated to celebrating and discussing GLTB presence in the medium of comic books and graphic novels.

When Shaun was hired for the job, he was thrilled at the opportunity to lend his appetite for civil rights, his killer editorial skills, and his adoration of comics to a project with such a socially conscious pulse. My partner’s dedication to this project and to gay rights made me proud enough, never mind the fact that the guide turned out to be completely amazing. The press has caught wind of the project and there seems to be a general consensus of “YAY!” from the critics.

Despite all the good press, Shaun is both mildly mortified and hugely humored because as unassuming and—lets face it—cerebral as he is, my husband fails to recognize when interviewers are trying to figure out if he is queer himself. When journalists ask Shaun questions like, “Would a superhero make a good boyfriend?” Shaun thinks not to answer, “I’m not a fag!” Instead he considers the question and constructs a thoughtful, funny statement like, “…they might be off in space half the time. And they get killed every so often—but you know they’ll always be back.” Since my partner doesn’t guard his nuts like a homophobe when asked a question like that, is it any wonder that he receives headlines like, “Gay Comic-Guide Editor” instead of “Editor of Gay Comic Guide?” I think not.

Shaun is used to a life that could have been scripted by Woody Allen; like Woody’s characters, Shaun always has the best intentions but through hilariously unfair misunderstandings and clumsy mishaps, he often achieves quirky, offbeat results. It’s a part of his charm. Especially since he takes it all in stride and keeps on pushing forward with a smile no matter what.

Here is the article for your reading enjoyment. Click on it to make it big enough to read–it should pop up in a new window for you.

In other news, my apologies for being such a slacker-blogger. Work and life have been moving at the speed of light lately. The biggest news is that Shaun and I are taking a weekend trip to NYC soon for Shaun to take a step further into his dream career in the comic world and for me to meet up with the long-time friend who was my “masculine of honor” (as opposed to maid of honor—he is a guy) in our wedding.

The weekend after we get back, I am off to D.C. to train for a job I secured for a few weekends this summer. The job this summer will be for the company I’ve taught weekend writing workshops to underprivileged high school youth in the past for, only this summer, not only will I be teaching the workshops, but I will be training the other teachers, too. So I’m getting trained on how to train.

That’s another thing I’ve been hard at work about—soul searching. I miss tutoring. I need to be teaching. I write better when I teach. I feel better when I teach. My current museum job is all the “right” things and I am completely thankful for it, but my heart is not in it. I’m working on a transition. I’m keeping my eye on the prize and when enough dough is stashed away to go back to school, a certified English teacher I will become.

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What do you dream for yourself?
Have you ever been so misunderstood it was funny?

::Random Tangent::
Department of Homeland Security dude solicits sex from teens online.
Bush authorizes CIA leak.
Our government grosses me out. Seriously. Where are the days of good old consensual blowjobs in the White House? Now the place is crudded up with disgusting, pedophile cyber-perverts trying to lay prepubescent kids and whispering traitors. I can’t even express how nauseated I am. Politics aside: these people are seriously criminal and f-ed up.

Ginger and Ben

I’m home sick today. I’m worried that my absence from work might reflect poorly on me; I’ve only been promoted for about two months and I’ve already had to take three days bereavement leave and now I’m using a sick day. I’m sure everything will be fine—I’m only human, after all. People die. People get sick.

People also get strange voice mails from strangers drunk-dialing the wrong number. Such was the case with me two weekends ago: a person attempting to call someone named “Ginge” (I’m assuming this is short for “Ginger”), called me instead and left an incredible message, one that provided me with a fun, secret glimpse into another life. Today, as the nastiness that ails me subsides, I will transcribe the message here for your reading enjoyment.

Before you read the transcription, imagine the speaker: Ben. His voice seethes with the posh and calculated inflections of a manicured, east coast educated man-child with no less than two semesters abroad under his preppy Dior Homme belt. He is sipping his third Long Island Iced Tea vivaciously through a bent, plastic straw. His throat is tinged with the rasp of lemon, clove cigarettes, sexual confusion, and the brine of the Pacific Ocean. He stands on the deck of his classmates fathers yacht in the moonlight, escaping the coke-rimmed party raging in the leather bellows of the boat. His midterms at Yale a distant memory and his inhibitions adequately depressed with liquor, he should be having a fine time. Yet his mind craves the company of his best friend and muse, Ginger.

Instead of spending spring break with drugs lining her sinuses and vodka drenching her pores like the rest of the senior class, Ginger is spending her break stuffing envelopes at an externship at the Clinton campaign offices. With ringlets of strawberry blonde hair and a smattering of delicate freckles gracing her upturned nose, her name has always been grossly fitting. Daughter of a Catholic, Boston firefighter and third grade teacher, Ginger relied on her wholesome image as she forged her way into advanced placement classes, cheating when she had to, sleeping with teachers when necessary, but generally advancing in earnest. Scholarship was the only way for her to pay for school, and the more immersed in academics she became, the more pathetic her parents and their lifestyle seemed. In her eyes, Yale became Ginger’s only option.

Ginger got into Yale on an academic scholarship that required her to earn no less than a 3.8 GPA and partake in at least 40 hours of extra curricular activities per semester. She met Ben while fulfilling part of her hours by volunteering at the Student Government elections, although he was volunteering to convince the dean of students that he should be taken off of academic probation next term: too many parties and scant attendance were the culprits of his demise. The pair hit it off right away—Ginger, sensing he was queer by the lilt to his voice and his inquiries as to her brand of hand cream, agreed to dinner with him that night. Queer or not, Ben was thrilled to be in the company of such a gorgeous female—especially one like Ginger who was ambivalent about her beauty, even as devastating as it was. While she knew how to use her leggy stride and long lashes to her advantage, beauty was something Ginger was completely unconcerned about. It was entirely natural to her.

As time wore on, Ben found himself conflicted about his feelings for Ginger. While Ginger does not stir him in the way he knows it should, he is enamored with her and thinking heavily about how unsavory his experiences with queer life have been. Bit by bit, Ben begins to realize that he wants to be Ginger: a female form itches beneath his hairy chest and testicled lower half. Ginger has known this all along—it is the reason why his company is the most flattering and thus most preferred for her. Their friendship is destined to crumple after graduation, but they cling to each other in the uncertainty of their senior year: Ginger needing nothing more than someone to worship her, Ben wanting nothing more than to study the epitome of what he craves to become.

So, Ginger does not want to be Hilary Clinton’s lap dog on this last spring break of her college career, foregoing Ben’s incessant invitations to join him in Miami for a mutual friend’s yacht party, but rather that the stringent requirements of her scholarship require it. Plus, the posters at the school career development office promised “an intimate glimpse into the inter-workings of political process” and “networking opportunities.” So far the only people she has met, aside from gullible students like herself, are a handful of warbling retired volunteers, eager to lambaste her for the apathy of her generation. The night Ben attempts to call her and reaches the voice mail of my cell phone instead, Ginger is taking a break from transcribing interviews, watching a frozen burrito spin methodically on the warming plate in the microwave, lost in the hum and the light.

Message Sent Saturday, March 18
7:48 pm
Ginge—it’s Ben. This could be the biggest mistake of the year not being here. Unbelievable. And, and, Ginge—you would have fit right in and you would have looked phenomenal on the back of this boat. I’m sorry—it wasn’t a boat. It was a yacht. And as only Dave Bradley could say, “it’s a pretty good feeling walking off your yacht and into your pent house.” (Pause) I…we miss you.
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Who do you like making up stories about? Do you ever get any weird calls or messages?

Schedules and Swiss Chard

Some girls like to indulge by painting their nails, shopping, and going to the spa. I hate the feel of nail polish crudding up my hands, I equate shopping with a trip to the dentist, and spas irritate me (massages in particular make me feel like a tortured piece of chicken pillard). So what’s a girl like me to do to splurge? Give me a clean schedule to write a blog, scribble in my journal, work on my fiction, and read a good book (and if the weather is nice to take a cool dip in the lake or a nice bike ride) and I am a happy, indulged woman. Getting my schedule clean is the hard part. The following outlines my activities this past week.

Monday: Worked a pleasant 9-5. Exercised. Rehearsed for Wednesday Presentation.
Tuesday: Got my vote on. Worked ten hours.
Wednesday: Rocked a presentation at the Conference on College Composition and Communication called Passing the Pen: Introducing Students to the Not-So-Secret Community of Writers that I co-wrote. Our presentation expounded upon the chapter that I co-authored for a book on Writing Center practicum, scheduled for release this summer. Life-Changing. Perfect. Exhausting. Celebratory pizza/beer outing at Piece with Shaun afterwards.
Thursday: Exercised. Worked 13 hours. Cooked and devoured a new hillbilly-inspired recipe for Trout Hash.
Friday: Exercised. Worked a pleasant 9-5. Cooked a new recipe that has given me a new favorite food (see below for details). Watched Gilmore Girls on DVD while devouring dinner. Collapsed from the exhaustion of the week around 8:30 pm.
Saturday: Sleep! Get bagels for breakfast! Blog! Read! Exercise? Work 4:00 pm-9:30ish.

This week’s go-go-go schedule is indicative of most weeks for me lately, a fact that I hold accountable for my lack of “indulgence time.” I realized yesterday that I haven’t touched draft #2 of my short story in nearly a month. The book that I am in love with, The Known World only sees my affection on my train ride in to work. And I’m not complaining—lord knows that plenty of people are WAY busier than me and I have kept much busier schedules in the past, but more so I am realizing that the activities I care about most in this world—literature and writing—are not getting the attention they deserve. I have allowed a life for myself that they are very separate from most days. This week I was lucky enough to devote Wednesday to the world of writing with my presentation; the way Wednesday made me smile from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair made the absence of this feeling all the more plain to me once Thursday hit. This is obviously a larger question unfit for a blog, but it is churning in my mind. For now, I’ll just say that I am grateful for this weekend, for a chance to dust off my short story, update this little blog of mine, and finally polish off the remaining 70 pages of The Known World and get to the little stack of New Yorker’s I’ve been ignoring.

Before I get to all that, I’ve got to share with you, my lovely reader, the recipe that I cooked up last night that is now one of my favorite foods. It’s so simple and super quick but yet it is so satisfying, especially if you are a freak like me who adores veggies.

My New Favorite Tacos
Adapted from this month’s issue of Eating Well Magazine

1 12-oz bunch of Swiss Chard or Spinach or a Mix of both
1 tbs of EVOO
1 large red onion, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
A healthy amount of crushed red pepper flakes (I like 1 tbs, but the recipe calls for 1 tsp)
1/2 cup chicken or veggie broth
Pinch ‘o’ salt (I like to use sea salt)
Your favorite tortillas (I like to use wheat ones, but what ever is your fancy)
1 cup of queso fresco cheese or feta cheese or goat cheese
Smoky Chipolte Salsa (The brand I like is called Frontera)

1.) If you are using Swiss Chard, cut it up a bit.
2.) Heat oil in a large skillet and add the onion until it is warmed up but firm; not slithery and gross and snake-like. Add garlic and crushed red pepper and stir around a bit until you can really smell the garlic—it should only be a minute or less.
3.) Add broth, whatever greens you are using (Chard or Spinach) and pinch ‘o’ salt and cook, stirring, until the greens are wilted. This is 4 minutes tops.
4.) Scoop that glorious green loveliness into your tortillas and sprinkle with whatever cheese you are using and a smokin’ spoonful of chipolte salsa. If you’ve got sour cream around you can add that too, but no worries if you don’t.
5.) Eat it while it’s hot! MMMM!!!!! DELICIOUS!!!!!!!

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What do you do to indulge yourself? Any new recipe’s making you smile as of late?

I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately, mainly on my lovely 15-minute walk to the red line in the morning, when the air is still frosty and the world is pink. This is one item that the mandibles of my mind have been gnawing on as of late.

On Feeling Special

When I was sad or when I was sick my mom used to sit next to me as I lay in bed and brush my light brown hair with her fingers. Her home smelled like warm and ginger. I knew I was special from the smell of the place I called home, from the care she showed me when she pet my hair; I understood how special I was to her from these things more than any other acts that she did (which I, like any other child so privileged as to have a good mother, took for granted): raving about all my nightmarish school plays (even when I was granted puny chorus roles, mom would assure me that my “charisma drew the crowd’s eye” to me), putting up with my drama at vocal music competitions (I was an emotional wreck), driving me everywhere and anywhere (parties, rehearsals, the library). Not that these other things were done in vein, but my mom made me feel special just by brushing my hair in the warmth of our home.

Eventhough he oftentimes was unable to put down his work to make good on the promise, my dad called the weekends I spent with him, “Truly Days.” I used to like it when, smiling, he declared those days ours for kite flying, movies, Twizzlers and Dr. Pepper, eventhough on more occasions than I care to remember those days were spent hungry, in wait—but that is not what I am thinking of here. But it is, in a way. Once my dad took me out to my elementary school playground on a Saturday in the dead of winter. We were on the swings at the far end of the lot and the metal chains of the swings squawked as he told me that my step mom had grown to resent Truly Days. I didn’t know how to process that information. I just felt tricked—I thought we were going to swing. And I liked how Truly Days were. Or the promise of them, anyways.

My step dad called me Ms. T. Even when he scolded me, it was, “let me show you this, Ms. T,” and he would take me to the place where I had failed to clean up after an art project or to the full dishwasher that I was scheduled to unload. He never yelled. It was Ms. T, bad or good. And it made me feel happy to be Ms. T to him.

When my family visited my grandparents in Colorado during the summers of my childhood, my aunt and uncle would let me stay with them in their apartment overnight, without the rest of my family. We would eat good sandwiches with sprouts and I would admire their excellent and expansive cd collection. We would walk the Peal Street mall and I would waste my chore money on tie dyed shirts, desperate to pass as a Boulder hippie. They always treated me as a grown up and it always made me feel so special to stay the night with them.

My grandparents have a hallway full of photos. Big frames with separate insets for various pictures literally cover every inch of this hall. There is a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day in Canada, freshly emigrated from England. My grandpa has black hair and black glasses. Grandma has a beautiful bob and a brilliant smile. There are older pictures; sepia and curling at the edges, of family in England I can’t ever remember the names of. There are pictures of my mom and her brother as kids, teenagers, at prom. There are pictures of me as a pudgy, big-bellied baby with a bowl cut. There are pictures of my cupie-doll cousins (my girl cousin on that side bears a sttriking resemblance to Claira Bow), and of my brothers when they were gooey, curly haired angel babies. There are pictures of old family friends, parties, and travels. Every time I am lucky enough to spend time in Colorado with my grandparents I like to spend hours in this hallway, looking. It makes me feel so special, so happy, so a part of something good. It is such a beautiful thing to preserve the places and people we come from like that. It honors all involved.

The smell of dinner warming the apartment after a long day at work, the way he sees me out the door in the morning with a kiss, the walks in the evening, the need to read the same books as me after I’ve finished, the consideration to wait for me to watch a Netflick: my husband makes me feel special in so many ways. But I’ve got to say that it is when he pets my hair after a bad day that I feel it the most.

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What makes you feel special?

::Random Tangent::
Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I can’t even remember what got into me to make me such a freak about the whole thing. The office got me a lovely b-day cake, Shaun got me a subscription to an awesome thing called Wolfin, which is comes in quarterly issues and is a DVD of unseen, independent short films and videos. A trial came with the latest McSweey’s and it was love at first viewing—I couldn’t be happier to expect more Wolfin’s coming my way. Shaun also got me an electric toothbrush, which I had been wanting for some time now. What can I say? I love oral hygiene. My mom got me a gorgeous pair of tear-drop earrings that I gently suggested would look smashing on me. My beloved cousin came to visit me on my birthday and we went to a neighborhood Moroccan cafe for dinner and played pictionary late into the night. It was a really nice introduction to my 24th year. I am grateful to everybody: I certainly felt loved and special that week. I like thinking about it. It makes me feel happy all over again.

Birthday. Day of birth. 24 years ago I went through a tragic ordeal that involved things so gruesome that nature has rendered me incapable of remembering them. My mom said I looked into her eyes moments after birth and knew her from another life. I don’t even know if my dad was there. He hates doctors. And babies. The day of birth involves both.

I’m scared of my birthday this year. I have a weird feeling that it will be a bad day. I took some preemptive strikes last night to ensure a smooth morning: I ironed my pants, prepared the coffee maker, made my lunch, all things that I usually do in the morning. Except for days that make me nervous. I prepare for those the night before.

I’ve never felt weird about my birthday before, even on the birthday that I planned my first slumber party for and then promptly had to cancel when my body covered itself in chicken pox. Usually my birthday is my favorite holiday. So much do I like it that I’ve thrown some massive, fantastic parties for the occasion. I wear my cutest outfit and I walk around feeling like a rock star all day. A very smiley rock star. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I’ll be wearing khakis and a dress shirt to work on a Monday morning that sucks the life out of the affair. I am wearing my birthday earrings, though.

Plans tonight should be fun. I’m not yet decided as to what we’ll be doing. I just may want to make the new flatbread recipe that I’ve wanted to try and watch the M-I5 DVD that came in the mail through Netflicks. But my cousin and her super nice people are visiting, so I wouldn’t want to bore them with my boringness. I’ll think of something.

*A special shout out to my mom for making birthdays possible. And special thanks to Jujie for the most excellent artwork featured in this post. Dig the symmetry and the movement in this drawing. Quite fantastic. My family is so cool. ::smile::
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Ever been inexplicably ambivalent about your birthday?

Love at First Bite

Yesterday I was seduced by a cheeky little tart that winked at me from the icy chambers of my grocer’s freezer section. Opening the freezer door, a mysterious cloud of cold swirled around me as my greedy hand wrapped around the sassy little container. The picture on her face depicted a glorious landscape of delicate pink softy whipped with white cream and dotted flirtatiously with dark chocolate chips. Just when I thought that the Edy’s ice cream company had reached the sugary climax of their luscious recipe capabilities with their Black Cherry and Vanilla Swirl frozen yogurt, they whipped up something new to keep a slight curve on my hips: Edy’s Light Slow Churned Raspberry Royale.

Yes my friends, Edy’s Light Slow Churned Raspberry Royale might have half the fat and a third fewer calories than regular ice cream, but screw that. This 1.75 quarts (1.65 liters for those of you kinky metric system freaks) of creamy goodness has more flavor and rich, velvety love than any full-figured ice cream I’ve ever had the pleasure of devouring. The flavor reminds me of a raspberry French soda, that spunky little cafe drink containing soda water, raspberry favoring, a splash of half and half and whipped cream. But Edy’s Light Slow Churned Raspberry Royale has the added bonus of chocolate and plus, it’s ice cream, and there is no satisfaction like a mug of ice cream after dinner or a few spoonfuls straight from the container when no one is looking.

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What has been entertaining your taste buds lately?

Things I would break down to a close friend about if I wasn’t so afraid to go to pieces and if I didn’t have to go to work and if I wasn’t already wearing eyeliner, all of the above which I am so I’ll write a blog about instead, eventhough it is against my better judgment

My tummy is full of snakes. It is a volatile month. Reconciliation of the death of a destructive man in my family was chased mercilessly by rejection letter after rejection letter from grad schools to my partner.

We’ve been in limbo for two years now. Watching, waiting: grad school was on the horizon and all other plans were on hold. Daily we fulfill ill-fitting tasks, taking solace in the thought that grad school is around the corner, bringing change. We agreed that he would go first, then me. This is the second year of rejection. This is the second year I have been waiting. I wouldn’t hesitate to tear the soft guts from anyone’s belly that thinks that my partner is anything less than a star. But at the same time, the suggestions I had for him—the workshops, the writers groups, the readers, the revisions—were not taken. Even when I began to take writing workshops, and my work flourished in them, providing a concrete example of what needs to be done with drafts you really care about, my two cents were ignored. But still, I trusted him to do what was best for him: his potential to be a legend resounds in his writing and I thought that perhaps that would be enough to let a grad school accept him. But of course, so many people have the potential. It takes work: unless you are John Updike, it is necessary to workshop your piece, to have as many readers as you can, to generate multiple drafts—the works. I don’t understand why someone with such obvious talent and outstanding work-ethic in all other aspects of life would be so disrespectful of the process that makes great stories possible from talented writers. Because my partner has the raw talent. But great stories—an undeniable portfolio—will elude you without adhering to the proper processes. I fear that my babe has some secret wish to fail. Because success is scary: then people would read what you agonized over. And some will hate it. No matter how good it is. That is my psychoanalysis, not his.

At the same time, he is enjoying much success this year. A comic of his has been included in an anthology and will hit stores in August. The book he edited hits stores this spring. His reviews are being quoted in television adverts, on book jackets. He is writing cliff notes. He is interviewing amazing people, such as the writers of my favorite show, LOST. He works hard to generate draft after draft of his short stories. There is so much good.

There still may be hope: there are still three out of seven remaining letters to come. Perhaps there is light in those envelopes. But perhaps there is not. In that case, we’ll have to look elsewhere for light. Which is a hard thing to do when you were expecting it to come through the mail.

I told him today that everything would be okay as long as he kept writing. But I know now that I can’t wait “my turn” any longer. I can’t make him take his work as seriously as he needs to before a grad school will welcome him into their program. I tried that. All I can do now is take care of me and encourage him to continue his work. Because I have faith that he will one day be ready to get serious about his drafts and work his ass of to craft them into what they need to be: putting his stories through the ringer with workshops, writers groups, and all. But it will break my heart if he doesn’t. It will break my heart to see someone who could have been a star and chose not to.

Tonight I have to work a special event so I get to go to the office late, thus the blogging mid-morning. Eventhough I get to go in late, I was up early enough this morning to catch a giant silverfish with a million legs scurry to hiding at dawns first light: I had to complete my online Alcohol Sellers Certification Test in time for the event at work tonight. I aced that bad boy, despite my puffy eyes, sore throat, and guilty conscious.
Sheepish this morning from the vile things that came from my mouth last night, I took some time away from my online test to make my babe a special hot chocolate/coffee and a breakfast of fresh berries and honey yogurt. I wrote a loving card and slipped it into a bag with a lunch of butterbean/arugula salad that I made for him. I am letting my heart beat blood instead of piss and vinegar.

He is sorry. I am sorry. I believe and I hope he does too. I am in love. But I am taking my turn.
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Ever felt snakes in your stomach?

EDIT:

Man am I morbid lately! I’m feeling 100% happy now. The best part about writing this was realizing that if I were a commenter I’d wonder what the big deal was: things are going well, who needs grad school? Obviously, learning is something we value hugely and it is a major priority, but we’ll be just fine for the time being. I’m an over-reacting freak. Besides, there are still envelopes out there. I’m such a nerd. It’s amazing anyone’s been able to read me at all these last few weeks. ::smile::

Nothing but Pleasant

When I wake in the morning the paste on my tongue is powdered sugar and cartoon birds sweep my hair up with delighted claws. I’ve never eaten before. I have no pores. I tinkle lemonade through my belly button.

I am nothing. I am nothing but pleasant.
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Ever been labeled?