The Christmas beast has crept back into his cave for another year, leaving behind a formidable pile of glitter, gauzy ribbons, torn paper, and gifts that need to be returned. The last of the cookies have been sent off with my daughter-in-luv to her family on the eastern shore, along with the chocolate silk pie and pumpkin cheesecake. Still my fridge is loaded with eggnog and exotic cheeses, parsley and goodness, what’s in this bowl? There will be no mimosas for breakfast as we finished off the champagne last night. There is half a pecan pie on the kitchen island, a sugary indulgence loved only by my husband. My daughter shook her head in exasperation when she discovered I had made him one for Christmas. I don’t even try to explain the strange relationship between her father and I again, especially since I don’t understand it myself. I know my feeble excuses for indulging in a diabetic’s sugar cravings and offering wine to alcoholics do not ring true.
My oldest asked me when I got my medical degree. I realized he had been talking to my daughter and I had been ratted out. I told him the doctor was great, but conservative, and while he had a lot of diplomas on his wall, I knew my own body better than anyone. What I was thinking was “When did my darling son become so sarcastic”. If he knew that I actually drove myself to the doctor today and was told I should have taken this whole week off, lied to get my hemovacs removed, then went to the gym and spent a half hour on the elliptical after work, he would be on an airplane this weekend to yell at me in person. I’m certainly not telling him about my sex life, the one the doc expressly forbid me to have. All I can say is I feel great and I look pretty good too (for an old lady). But don’t take my word for it. You decide.
This is going to be a whiney post, so you're welcome to leave now if you like. Not only do I have two weeks off work, everyone is being very solicitous about my well being, tuned into my needs, and generally treating me like I might break. Help!!! I miss my job!! I miss my car!!! I miss the gym!! I want to soak in a hot tub. I want to quit taking antibiotics. I want my family to stop hassling me to get me to take pain meds. I have no pain I cannot deal with. Oh, did I mention I miss sex? I never said this list was in order. The doctor took a quick look at my belly yesterday and said,
People on the road get lonely, I understand that and while the gym is a good place to work out some of those frustrations, there are some basics you should know before putting your key card in the door. I’m giving the benefit of the doubt to those individuals who have obviously never been inside a gym before believing all they need is some guidance.
My middle toenail from my right foot is lost somewhere in this hotel room. It had been hanging on since the incident at the camping trip and I had put a bit of tape on it so I could continue to wear my open toed shoes. It was startling to glance down at my foot and find it MIA. Now I’m trying to imagine the horror of the cleaning staff when they saw that small rectangle of red in the bed linens, or the carpet. Perhaps they even picked it up to investigate, and then dropped it in disgusted haste. I did a cursory search inside my shoes and even shook out the hose I wore the night before, but no luck. I sat staring at the tiny new toenail that is growing hopefully, all white and innocent amid its bright red and brazen sister toes. I debate on painting the skin on my toe red, but finally decide I can lighten my overweight baggage by sending my sandals home with my husband. Oh, did I mention he decided I might just be worth the cost of a plane ticket this trip? He arrived on Saturday night and will leave tomorrow morning. We had a great Sunday climbing in the Garden of the Gods (pictures to follow), had a number of lovely meals in Denver, went to Old Colorado City and made a purchase in “Nice and Naughty” (he sat out front while I shopped), and did a lot of other fun stuff I’ll just leave to your imagination. All and all I count it a good weekend when all I lose is a toenail. Hope yours was as perfect as mine.
I’m posting my big story over here on the family blog, and as you read you will notice I give a passing nod to Jack Daniels (for medicinal purposes only of course). We downed half the bottle the first night, even though I hate the taste of whisky, it did help us drop off to sleep. What luck that we had found the ABC store in the same shopping center as Blue Ridge outfitters that Saturday morning when we stopped in Charlottesville. At Blue Ridge we bought our “pocket rocket” a propane cooker, and both immediately commented the name sounded like a vibrator, and my girl spotted the liquor store as we were leaving the lot. When I ripped off my toenail, she fetched the bottle along with the first aide kit, but as fortune would have it, we used antibiotic ointment for external application, sour mash for the wave of pain. She needed a bit too for her ankle and the nerve to doctor my dainty toe, recently pedicured and gushing blood. I am embarrassed to tell you that shortly after those first swigs for the toe incident, I dropped the bottle on the rocks and broke it to smithereens. Having no liquid courage and still being sober enough to drive, that break was probably the deciding factor in our decision to get out that night.
I gave my husband a kiss that had to last for two weeks then wheeled my suitcase through the gate. At exactly 2:03 pm, right on schedule, the tiny 50-passenger plane pulled itself lightly from the ground, the day hot, clear and cloudless. I am blessed with a window seat and a surly silent companion wearing really cute shoes and reading a fashion magazine. Even if I flew every day I would never tire of seeing the world spread out below me like a map, the interstates for boundary lines, the lakes and rivers bright ribbons laced through green and brown. I want to share the joy of Maymont from the air, the James River snaking into the distance on its tireless trip to the ocean but there is no one else interested. I try to turn from the beautiful panorama of farms and fields and become absorbed in my book. The air soon grows rocky and restless tossing us like voyagers on an invisible ocean. I press my face to the window again intrigued by even squares of corn and wheat sliced thoughtlessly by diagonal lines of interstates. My eyes are drawn to a wrongness in the pattern near the top of the picture, as if the artist had erased a section and smudged it a uniform gray brown or perhaps an area the cartographers left blank with the caption, “there be dragons here”. I stare at the void for several minutes before I realize the tiny white dots I notice at the edge of the emptiness are boats on the vast inland sea of Lake Michigan. To my eyes it is a fearsome thing from the air. As it rises up to meet the horizon it seems to loom, as if threatening to fall and overtake the peaceful cottages perched so fragile and small along the shore. The plane dips to the left and for long minutes water is all I can see out my porthole. Then with a quick turn to the right the towers of Chicago rise like a three dimensional bar graph from the level page of the Great Plains. I think poetry as it shines beneath me, Sandberg’s city with the big shoulders, stackers of wheat, hog butcher to the world, player with railroads. It is easy to be poetic from this distance.
We land as lightly and effortlessly as we departed and I want to go thank Captain Schultz, our pilot for his expertise. The thought is gone by the time I arrive at the cabin door and walk down the steps to the tarmac. Everything is jumbled, hot, inconvenient, poorly marked. We move in some dreamscape up and down endless steps, smells of discordant food assault my nose. Finally we are counted and herded in groups of 16 to waiting buses for an uncomfortable 5 minute trip to a place that looked identical to where we were before. My coworker and traveling companion, his knees jammed and legs bent unnaturally in the miniscule space allotted, observes that there are actually 20 people on the bus and that there are 15 empty places. I want to tell him that dreams like this rarely make sense, but he is a counter of things like people, money, minutes, and miles, so I merely nod and agree. More steps, more walking, and finally we stand in the designated gate. He snorts derisively at my “rabbit food” when I offer to get him a salad from the vendor across the way. When I return he informs me there are 150 people on standby for our flight, a number that seems to cause him concern. He calls his wife again to tell her the minute details of our journey so far. He hangs up forlorn when she asks him not to call again until we arrive at the hotel.
Soon we trudge soullessly into the waiting jet and I find myself in the exact center of the plane, no window, no aisle, and squeezed between a 20 something and a elderly woman who grabs the ass of the passing male flight attendant to complain about the cabin temperature. I give her my blanket, and bereft of a window I concentrate on my salad and my book. Like a ride in an elevator the flight is over before I have finished three chapters. The Denver airport is sleek and modern, the ride to the outside made seamlessly easy, the buses and vans waiting for deplaning passengers non-polluting. Our driver is of the New York persuasion with the gas pedal, lurching forward and letting off the gas alternately as we drive along the almost empty four lane road to town. The hotel is luxurious, my two room suite complete with two televisions I will never turn on, a microwave and fridge. We are not in time for the manager’s nightly reception, free booze and snacks in an oddly family atmosphere, but I head for the bar to catch up with my coworkers and get a briefing for tomorrow. I chat with Rich, the barkeep over a couple of drafts after she heads off too bed. He complains that he has just been asked to supply a birthday cake with candles along with hot chocolate and martinis. I agree with him that it is indeed a strange place to work.
I awaken at 4 am to a blackened sky and curse my unfailing internal clock, the one that is too stupid to know that I have had only three hours sleep. At five I am alone in the gym doing time on the elliptical. By 7:30 I have joined my coworkers for breakfast in the atrium, pushed the free breakfast around on my plate, and tasted the very disappointing coffee. By eight we are all on the job; the meet and greet starts at 10:30, then down to business. By Wednesday I have fallen into the grinding routine, twelve hour days, hurried lunches, nervous new hires to reassure. My favorite trainee takes me to lunch, but I insist on paying per protocol. He is relatively fundless and I have a corporate expense account. In return he shares his life story with me. I will not betray his trust, but let us say he is interesting. I especially like the fact that he tells me he is older than me when I am actually 10 years his senior. My other trainee, only 25, is more direct. After he listens to me turn a customer around from skeptical to enrolled, he looks at me with the greatest respect and pronounces me “the bomb”. We settle into a comfortable working relationship after the first day.
It is now Thursday morning and life on the road has already grown old. I miss my husband more than I realized I would. I miss my son, my sweet red car, even the loving annoyance of my cats. The hotel is jammed with other business travelers eating breakfast alone or with companions they did not choose. All of us have other places we’d prefer to be, things we’d rather do, and we all have the blurry-eyed look of the chronically tired. I’m working on a delicate balance between caffeine and beer, legal uppers and downers, in order to get through the long days. As I look around at my fellow voyagers gathered in the atrium for breakfast, and at the bar after hours, I have a feeling I’m not the only one.
I have spent the day doing what I love second best, writing. I forgot to eat anything until three o’clock, but I drank two pots of strong black coffee. I finished about three thousand words between laundry, going to the grocery, and packing for Denver. This afternoon I called my sister to clarify a few points about my father’s life, the story I had spent the day slaving over. “No,” she says, “It didn’t happen that way. He was only 8 when they went to Colorado. His mother owned a hotel in Horse Branch, not Rosine. They left because of dust in the air, you know, when all the soil blew away.” After she went on a bit more I was completely deflated. My story is great, one of the best I’ve written. It’s just evidently not about my father but some mythical person I created entirely inside my head. I saved it quietly and walked away. She’s going to send me the notes she made when she talked to him years ago. Oh, Bother, now I’m either going to have to make it historically accurate or change the name of the lead character from Dad to, I don’t know, Ed maybe?
I’m not going to think about that again today. I will think about that next week, or maybe the week after. I’m going to focus on the positive. Everything I own is clean, the house is reasonably presentable, my bag is neatly packed, and I have a new manager. YES, you heard that right! A new day has dawned and Mr. “Let’s go out to a poetry reading together” is one step nearer the exit door and no longer my problem. Speaking of steps, did I mention the red shoes? I was wondering how I was going to work them into this meandering post. Not too deftly I admit, but aren’t they adorable? When I was working my way through college I took a job at a shoe store. My favorite customers were the children under seven, because they have very simple requirements for footwear. I made it a point to talk to them first rather than the practical parent who accompanied them. Without exception, when asked what kind of shoes they wanted they would lisp, “Red ones.” I know exactly how they feel. Now darlings, I’m off to paint my toenails to match and go dancing. Have a stellar weekend.
You can be sure I’m not trying to educate anyone in art history, but I saw an analysis of this great Rembrandt picture that shows Bathsheba contemplating a letter she received from David, who you all must know was very hot for her. At the time of the picture she had not yet slept with David, so she was not knocked up, and she had not yet conveniently become a widow. If you haven’t read the story in “The Book”, there is also a great song about it, “Hallelujah”, written by Leonard Cohen, and sung most excellently by the late great Jeff Buckley. Now I’m thinking she must have been some sizzling number to drive a man to those lengths, but of course, history left us no accurate pictures. For reasons I’m trying to understand, most depictions of her show her as a redhead. Rembrandt, Francesco, Ricci, Artemisia, and Hollywood all cast her in shades from ginger to auburn, sometimes an innocent victim and sometimes as the cunning seducer. Since I changed to red I must admit I’ve gotten a bit of an attitude. Perhaps it would be the same if I had gone with another color, but I think red has some serious implications. No woman who dyes her hair red is looking to slink back into the corner and hide.123Val has asked to put my blogging advice in one sentence. The challenge to be pithy and profound is not my best game, but I’ll give it a shot. Now read this carefully because I may be asking you to do it too.
It’s very simple.When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like.(Check out especially the * starred ones.)Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.)and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers.
1. Look, read, and learn. *****-http://www.neonscent.com/
2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. *****-http://www.bushmackel.com/
3. Don’t let money change ya! ****-http://www.therandomforest.info/
4. Always reply to your comments.**-http://chattiekat.com/
5. Develop your own "voice" don't "borrow" someone else's****-Mizmouthy
6. If you don't have something to say, don't worry your loyal readers will wait**-Oldfashionmomma-
7. Be yourself, don't be afraid to share who you really are ****-http://shibari-confessions.blogspot.com
8. Figure out what you stand for, then try to master it.** -http://mornmeet.blogspot.com/
9. Post pictures when you can* -http://akadventuring.blogspot.com
10. Talk about your boobs a lot.* http://123valerie.blogspot.com/
11. If you must choose between living and blogging, choose wisely. http://thinin06.blogspot.com/
and for Pete’s sake, don’t put a date and what you were doing a year ago in your URL!
Now finding 10 friends that admit they read my blog is another issue. Further has spoken right out loud, Ballsy Blogger has eluded to things I have written, but tagging really isn't her style and Smoke Signals loves this kind of thing. The rest of the admitted readers have already been tagged or probably will not respond, but maybe I'm being judgmental? Now, since my site meter tells me I have an average of 25 readers per day I'm making this a double challenge. If you're reading silently, tag, you're it.
Here he is enjoying a meal at home in London where he is a housemate of my daughter, but you may recognize him from Last Comic Standing that appears on NBC on Wednesday night. He's funny, brillant, and an all around great guy. There will be an oppertunity for everyone to vote for him very soon. I'm not telling anyone what to do, I'm just asking you to watch and let your laughter be your guide.
I never danced with a woman until Thursday night, but when Kathy took my hand and said, “let’s go”, I was right out there on the floor before I gave it a second thought. I had stared at her when she came in wearing a little pink top with intricate knotting and strings hanging down a bit past her slim waist. She sat at the very next table with her husband and I couldn’t resist telling her how much I loved the outfit. We were soon chatting about the great band on stage, our children, and our jobs. When she told me she had 28 years in with the state, my mouth dropped open. With her trim figure, unlined face, and amazing style I would not have guessed her for a minute over 35. Of course, she kindly said the same about me, but well, there wasn’t much light in the room. Her skin tone was darker than her husband, a rich mocha brown, and the pink sheen of the spaghetti straps lay like silk on silk across her shoulders. Her husband seemed oblivious to her stunning good looks, and like my man, could only be persuaded out on the floor for the slow songs. Kathy is not a girl to sit on the sidelines waiting, and after watching me dance beside my chair for the third time in as many songs it was time to go for broke. She had told me she was a musician and singer in her own band after I complimented her voice. I could see she was a girl accustomed to the spotlight because she didn’t stop until we were standing inches away from one of Casper’s lead singers and best dancers, Levie. I did my utmost to keep up with her, and I held my own, but could not match the grace and fluid beauty of her moves through “That’s the way, the way, the way I like it” and "Play that Funky music".
When I got back to the table, breathless and animated, my husband was amused. He knows me too well to think what occurred had any sexual undertones, but it has been a year of revelations for me where women are concerned. The quintessential woman to woman relationship for most girls is our first one, the one we have with our mothers. I hope other females reading this have a peaceful and fulfilling maternal connection, because mine unfortunately was stormy and difficult, punctuated by both mental and physical abuse. It colored all of my friendships with those of my own sex for all time. It is no surprise that even with my best female friends I held back, always cautious and expecting the worst. When my daughter was born I came to realize how unnatural the connection was between Mom and myself. One look into the face of my little girl and I vowed that she would have a perfect mother. I ended up settling for being human, being the best mom I could be, and admitting when I made mistakes. It worked out pretty well, better than I expected actually. When I visited her in London and spent the day at the spa, I was astounded by the pleasure of being surrounded and engulfed only by the smell and touch of women. In this place there were no rough edges, no harshness. The usual competitive atmosphere of male/female posturing was altogether absent, and I was able to observe the female of the species in its pure state. I tried to imagine my mother or my sister in this place of casual nudity and sensuality, but it was impossible.
Until I was in my late twenties my mother was always completely dressed when I saw her. I remember how surprised I was when she walked out of her bathroom wearing her slip once when I was visiting. She had not realized I was in the room, and uncomfortable, she quickly turned her back as she put on the dress that she had laid out on the bed. When mom was desperately ill I went home to help with her care. Neither of us would admit that she was dying, because if we had done so we would have been obligated to try one last time to bridge the gulf between us, and we would have had the final agony of not succeeding. Instead, we talked about nothing, like two strangers who met on a train, straining to be polite. She was too weak to get out of her chair to get to the toilet, and once in helping her stand, her robe loosened and her breast was uncovered briefly. As far as I know I am the only person other than my father and her doctor who ever saw a glimpse of any intimate part of her body. She was more embarrassed by this exposure than by the need for help rising from her chair and clinging to me during the walk to the bathroom, so I pretended not to notice and she pretended it didn’t happen; an analogy for our entire life together. What struck me in that second was not embarrassment, but the realization that although altered by age, her nipple and breast was the image of mine, that I was indeed flesh of her flesh.
That is where the story of my mother and myself ended, that last chance wasted, and the pain I still feel after all this time is not for losing her, but for a lifetime of being held at arms length. In the intervening years I have healed myself, mothered myself, and finally allowed other women to mother me too. Lying in bed on Friday morning I came to the realization that I danced with Kathy because I liked her, admired her lush femininity, and accepted her appreciation of my own. In fact, like Kathy, I am at ease in my own skin, confident of my intrinsic value, and very glad to have been born female. When I look in the mirror, my mother’s eyes look back at me. I have the same soft body contours as she, the same nose and mouth, but I am not the woman my mother was, and most certainly not the woman she wanted me to be; I am much better. Unlike her and in spite of her, I know my own value. As much as I adore men, the smell of them, the boyishness in even the oldest of them, the strong arm they proffer that makes me feel all blushes and giggles inside, I have a the self-assurance to know women like myself are something they are most fortunate to find. If you don’t believe me ask any man who has exhausted himself trying to prove his love to an insecure partner, or actually any woman who has tried the same. It is so simple, so basic, so hard to teach, but to truly love someone else you have to love yourself first. I know it, Kathy knows it, and my girl knows it now, after a bit of trial and error. I think most of my readers do too, right?
I have been with trapped at work with the Muggles this week and not using my magic has been sheer drudgery. On the positive side, my job has been going very well indeed, and the long hours I have put in are paying off. I am being sent to Denver the week of August 13 to train employees for a new call center. My boss’s boss says two weeks out, two weeks back, then two more weeks at the end of September. I don’t mind living in luxury hotels on an expense account too much, but of course it will be lonely. More good news, my boss will not be going. In fact, he is in a bit of trouble for a number of uh, communication problems. I won’t go into the juicy details. Let’s just say his chickens are coming home to roost.
My friend Mary has turned the camera over to the grandchildren and the pictures have been pretty ordinary since then, until this one from the Grand Canyon. The cropping is my own to protect the identity of said picker.
“I had the most wonderful dream,” says my husband as we snuggle in bed. “It was my perfect fantasy. I was on this beautiful deserted beach...”...I am on a road that winds through a wood. The branches of the trees form a canopy over the dirt path, making the day seem dusky and dark. There is a faint smell of death on the breeze, stronger than the normal smell of decaying leaves and damp soil. I am walking with no destination in mind but safety and that seems too far away to find before nightfall. My pace is brisk and confident and I do not slow or react when I hear the rustling in the underbrush. My hands are empty of weapons, but the thing I face will be fought with words alone. As it steps out of the shadows of the path in front of me and speaks it’s challenge, I notice my man standing at the edge of the tree line, watching silently. I smile, but only with my eyes.
