Apologetic (or Tweet This)

My Dearest Little A,

Bitch slapping your big sister, exclaiming it to be an accident, tossing out a half-assed apology and beating feet in a hasty retreat is clearly not acceptable no matter how cute you are. It just might earn you a bloody nose one day. Love always, Mom.

Lessons Learned

On the way to her play date with her new friend N, E randomly asked me if I had been married once or two times. I answered and waited. The next question was about why Grandma had two husbands and Daddy had two wives. I explained briefly and offered to show her photos of her other Grandpa and Daddy's ex-wife if she wanted to see them. No thank you was the very polite reply. I let it go and turned up the radio. Two songs later we've sang through being too sexy and we knew it, had some apple bottom jeans with the fur going on and she asked if Daddy ever saw his ex any more. I said no, that she wasn't in his life anymore and hadn't been in many years but that he wished her well and hoped her life was everything she wished it to be. We talked a bit and I tried to explain that loving someone meant wanting the best for that person regardless of what it meant for you. She cocked her head and looked up at me. I tried again… doesn’t matter if you agree with someone’s choices, doesn’t matter if you like their decisions, you just want for them what brings joy to their soul and peace to their heart. If she even gets a smidgen of that notion, I’ll be happy.

We arrived at the park and feed a few ducks while we waited for her friend. Once they spotted each other it was game on. Four hours of racing between the carousel, the train ride, and the parachute drop. Hands in the air and screaming on the dragon wagon gave way to furious spinning and giggling through the teacups. They downed hotdogs and sipped soda, chattering like long lost friends. They held each other’s diminutive hands while they fed the ducks and went down the slide headfirst. A friendship developed somewhere in the midst of a great debate over pringles vs. doritos. There are photos, exchanges of email addresses, and addresses, phone numbers and the promise of life long pen pals. I truly believe that they will. I’ve discovered there is a lesson or three in these last four hours… if only one chooses to listen and learn.

She’s a thoughtful child, my firstborn, I don’t know if I shared with you her tooth fairy visit. It was a couple weeks ago, on a Thursday night when I was running late for work, trying to wake up, throwing dinner on the table and packing mine to go. E was wiggling and I finally exasperatedly told her to just yank the darn tooth out. She did. It bled everywhere and I felt bad. It turned out to be fine. I left the details of the tooth fairy pillow, the dollar, the sneakiness of it all to the dad and I left. The next morning after my flight of the bumblebee to make it home in time to walk her to the bus stop she says to me that she’s giving her dollar to her teacher because they need to buy more swings and slides for the play ground. I laugh thinking of how much those things really cost and that her dollar is but a drop in the bucket but I don’t say anything. She really does it. Her teacher emailed me later to tell me how thoughtful my child is and how moved she and the principal were by the generosity exhibited by a six year old on a random Friday. She earns an award in their Character Counts program and I’m bursting with pride. And I know I’ve learned something from this that I’ll carry with me forever.

On a different day A comes home from a visit, the ones that make me nervous, sweaty and jumpy, distracted as all get out for four hours each and every Monday until she comes back to me and I can ensure for myself that my baby is safe and secure, but I digress… she has with her a toy Angry Bird. It’s a stupid video game to begin with…the fact that they make toys from it mystifies me and the idea that her birth person thought it would make an appropriate xmas gift for a little girl boggles my mind. A is hopped up on the sugar of a full liter of soda, the carbs of whatever crap she was fed for her "dinner" and the nerves and anxiety that come with such events. She won’t look me in the eye. She won’t focus. It’s normal. Nothing much changes. She shows up and birth person tries to buy her love and affection. But this time, my baby says to me… Momma, take the mad bird away.. he makes me sad. So I did. And I know there is a lesson to be learned here. Every four-year-olds can tell the difference between genuine love and affection and an show intended to impress someone. The next Monday she asks me to come with her to her visit. I explain that I as much as I would love to, that I cannot and it’s her special time to be with that person. She refuses to dress, eat breakfast and I have to drag her to school. Her logic? If she doesn’t go to school, no one can pick her up for a visit. She’s a smart one my angel.

My parents arrive on Christmas Eve, closely followed by my sister and her husband. A’s birthday is discussed, seeing as how they missed it, and we celebrate it again with presents, desert after dinner etc. A rips into her presents like a birthday champ. She is overjoyed with her Monkey George, her chef’s hat and apron, the tools, her barbies, you name it. This little girl cannot believe that all of these fine things are for her. She asks me more than once if she can keep them. I assure her that she can. I help her name her Monkey. We put him to bed on her bed. We have dinner as a family and allow her to unboggle her mind a bit. When I tuck her and George and half a dozen other stuffies into bed later that night she asks if Santa is really coming tonight. I remind her that we set out the plate of cookies and the glass of milk, we gathered oats, glitter and carrots for the reindeer and yes indeed… they are coming… but not if she peeks. I find her in the morning, face down with her pillow over her head, just in case Santa might think she peeked and leave her lumps of coal. Omg.. how precious.

Christmas morning E is impatient; thrilled, excited and over the moon that Santa brought her an awesome stocking and presents. A is quieter and a little clingy. She has no concept of Christmas morning and all that it entails in a big family. I almost miss it while I’m cooking breakfast for everyone, but my mom walks into the kitchen and puts her hand on my shoulder and tells me that It’ll keep. She nods towards the kids and I get it. One by one, the presents get unwrapped and A’s eyes light up over and over, trying desperately to take it all in. E helps, a bit, distracts more and finally A edges toward her favorite corner of the couch with her favorite stuffie and just settles in a bit, busies herself with her juice and contemplates. You can see the wheels turning in her head. I give her that space because she seems to just need time to process.

At breakfast the next morning – Cracker Barrel, she and E both devoured pancakes with real maple syrup, which might be a first for A. It was a day of firsts… Aunt K and Uncle K took the girls to a movie – A’s first in a theater and first trip in a convertible with the top down, before that we went to Cabella’s to see the aquarium and all the taxidermy animals… yet more firsts. We named them all, talked about the scary ones, discussed which ones could eat you and giggled. I think they both loved every minute of that day. And when they went to bed, so tired they couldn’t keep their respective eyes open another minute, E told me I was the best Mommy ever and A told me that she wanted to change her name to match ours. They both slept well. So did I.. for the first time in weeks.

You know what I've learned from all of this? I know you do.. don't you? I've learned that I have to stop this madness of working all night and sleeping all day. I have to start living again, like a human being, making time for the simple things, the little things that I've given short shrift to this year. I have to spend weekend mornings with my people, cooking pancakes and watching cartoons. I have to enjoy more and stress less. I truly thought I was doing the right things. I know now that I was not and that I've missed more than I care to acknowledge. I have to get back to respecting that inate goofyness and silliness that I was blessed with. The part of me that played in the leaf pile today with the kids and squirted whipped cream in their mouths and oops (up their noses!)... there is something so genuine and amazing about making a forever friend in fifteen minutes and I'm so thrilled that I got to be a part of it. There is something to be said for leaving the dishes in the sink, allowing the laundry to sit another day and just existing in the moment. I know that now.

It’s been an amazing year, this 2011. It didn’t start off that way and it’s had its bumps and bruises along the way. It hasn’t been without it’s drama and stresses but overall I can’t really complain, ya know? So I wanted to say to you the things I said to the rest of my family at Christmas dinner: Thank you for putting up with me through all of my craziness, for supporting my less than conventional lifestyle though I’m sure you’ve had your share of head shaking at my choices. I will forever be grateful for everyone in my life accepting A and loving her as much as I do. She couldn’t have asked for a better extended family to be a part of her "forever." Thank you for holding my hand, offering advice, keeping me sane at times and for always telling me the truth when I needed to hear it most whether I wanted it or not. I am grateful and humbled by each of you and thankful each day that you are in my life.

My wish for 2012 is a little less stress for all of us, a little more peace, and opportunities that bring us new challenges and new joys. May 2012 be the UP year that we’ve all been anxiously awaiting.

"May God grant you always...A sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering Angel so nothing can harm you. Laughter to cheer you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you."

Time

Where exactly does time go? Does it fly? Does it creep? Does father time slow the clocks on purpose when you have better things to do than wait or work? Does mother nature speed up the time to get through the beauty of spring and deliver us to the depths of a hellish summer? Tell me pretty please... where does time go?

Six months I've put off writing for another day. I'm too busy. The kids are making me busier. My life is crazy. I need to sleep. Work has gotten in the way. Life happened. So much has changed I think we've come full circle in six months and one week.

Why exactly did I answer that phone long those many months ago? Actually I didn't. Not that it matters much now. I had the handsome husband answer that phone because the damn thing would not stop ringing. Did I know who it was? Oh yeah. My bad. When we met T a year or so ago I shied away. Kind of. She isn't my kind of person. She lies. She's manipulative. Other than motherhood we have nothing in common. I'm not sure we even have that considering I actually wanted my child, took great care to have her healthy and happy. My child is cherished, probably a bit spoiled and very much the center of my world. Her approach to motherhood has been accidental, drug induced, rage filled and booze fueled.

So she got cozy with the husband and worked him. Not in a romantic way - that would almost have been easier to combat. She had his sympathy. She tugged at his heart. Because he has a huge heart and he's a sucker for a woman in distress, especially if she has children. And oh does she ever. That little voice in the back of my head that said run... run fast and run far from this disaster in the making before it has the ability to overtake you. I listened. I however, failed to communicate that gut wrenching, anxious, dreadful feeling to the handsome husband and dammit I know why. Because we are so blessed and we have so much and to be selfish just isn't in me. And I could not tell the sweetest and most honest man who ever lived that I wanted him to walk away from those three people in need. I feared he would think less of me. I know he would.

The spring passed last year and it turned hot. I watched from a far as the children played outside, miserable and filthy, with nothing really to play with on the hard scrabble ground. I watched as they tried to keep cool with a hose, turning the ground into this sort of reddish clay that clung to their skin and muddied their already dirty clothes. Some days T was there, other days not so much. I heard the tales of foraging dumpsters for food, collecting cigarette butts from the ground for a nicotine fix, and I shook my head in disgust and dismay. And then came the days that physically she was there tottering around on unsteady feet and mentally her brain cells were clogged with the drugs that stole her from reality.

I softened a bit over the weeks. Asked the children in for a break from the heat. Into the cool and sometimes dark cave that is our living room, complete with all the trappings of the semi middle class. How foreign it must have been to have computers, big screen tvs, video games and toys at their disposal, abet borrowed ones. I've learned that as they've gone from house to house, crashing on the couch of whomever might allow it, or whomever had the drugs their mother craved, most of their lives were left behind. Pets, clothes, toys, personal possessions were not treated with the respect most of us give our "stuff."

We had dinner together a few times, always just the girls and their mother would stop in for a brief bit. Just long enough to eat, never long enough to face the questions of how she was going to get them to a better place, a better life. Never so long that one of us might make mention of her altered mental state.

And oh the tales we weave when first we set out to deceive. The dread over the looming release date of the ex who had tried to kill them. The despair over having lost a storage unit with all of their things. The missing money. The untrustworthy brother. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over lost jobs, lost family, friends and finally of lost hope. The unwavering belief that every crappy thing that's come to stand in the way of their success as a family is always someone else's fault. True? As I've come to know these last six months and I've repeated over and over until it has become my mantra. I'll believe it when I see it.

The week I started working nights the last phone call from T came. Come visit. Bring food. Let's bbq. Typical, but we did mostly because we wanted to check on the girls. They were stuck in some two-bit non nondescript motel along the highway... waiting she said... never sure what for. Begging for money to be able to stay there each night, picking up an odd job or two when she needed a fix. Such a life for a teenager and a baby. As the night ended, I grew more wary of her stories, her crap and her flair for the dramatic. It just never quite adds up to the truth. We brought home a dog from that visit. T insisted that she found it but could not keep it. Actually she found it for the husband because he'd mentioned some day wanting one and she knew I did not. Yet another attempt to fracture our happy family because if her's wasn't happy no one else should be either. One notion I've overcome resenting ever time I look at the dog. Maggie grows on you, with her cute little black face and semi sad eyes, but seriously dammit... it should have been our decision in our own time to become doggie parents.

Poof... they were gone. A brief text at Christmas from a number I didn't recognize and that was it. I wondered what happened to them once in a while. As we blew out the birthday candles and M turned 5, I thought about little A's 3rd birthday approaching and wondered if there would be presents and a cake, though I knew better. When the wind kicked up in December and I pulled my jacket a little tighter around my neck I said a prayer that T had sense enough to find jackets for the girls. On New Year's Eve as we arrested drunk after drunk after senseless drunk driver I prayed they were safe somewhere... after all it was big A's 15th birthday and a time for celebrating double, though I doubt they did.

January 2011 was a cold one indeed. I took to wearing a jacket daily. Seemed strange to have all this cold and nasty weather. I grew up with this and moved to get away from it. I had forgotten how bitterly cold it could be when there was no humidity. The kind of cold that made it hurt to breathe. The kind of cold that kept you running... from work to the car, from the car to the house and everywhere in between. The kind of cold that kept your head down and your gaze averted lest the wind whip you in the face and the sand scratch your eyeballs.

Time passed... there I ago again with that infernal notion of time. The phone call ended with that plaintiff refrain, "are you willing?" And there was no other answer than "bring them to me." It became a whisper in the wind, trailing off towards the end, "bring them to me." An idea so strange and so bold, so foreign to be asked to raise another woman's children because the powers that be finally got a clue and decided that she could not. I wept that night on the way to work, thinking that the baby with the bright blond curls and the stunning blue eyes that I had fallen in love with last summer, might finally be safe. Even if it was only for a little while.

How little did I know what time had in store for me. How little did I know how much I could give, how much I could love and how much I could learn in seven short months.

"Can you teach me about tomorrow and all the pain and sorry, running free... 'cuz tomorrow's just another day and I don't believe in time."

Like Mother, Like Daughter, Like Grand Daughter

His email was short, to the point, and incredibly supportive in the face of my losing yet another dear fur child.... the eighth since we entered each other's lives going on six years ago. Old age is a cruel and mighty bitch and while you can stave it off for a while with love and good care, it always wins the end. This we both know. "It tears my heart out... I don't know how you do it. Know my heart is with you in this sad moment."

What he didn't expect was the reply and as it came forth from my fingertips clip-clopping against the keyboard, I found that I didn't expect it either.

How do I do it? Sometimes I think not very well at all. I cry a lot. I'm a big baby and a total train wreck for a little while and I've come to believe that it's okay. And other times I think that you taught me well how to handle it. I remember all of the amazingly joyful moments each one gave to me and the wonder and utter delight they brought to my life. The pain of losing them is somehow less than the idea of never having had the opportunity and genuine pleasure of being their Mom.

Time heals... it truly does. You know, you gave me quite the compliment the other day when you said that that your daughter reminds you of me. Honestly I had a conversation with someone at work last week that I've been helping about similar things. She's been using me as a sounding board for her problems and she said to me that she felt sorry for me and all the crazy things that have happened to our family in the last few years. I almost laughed and she must have thought I was nuts.

I explained. Feeling sorry for myself and having other people feel sorry for me is a total waste of time. It is what it is. And I suppose all of this stuff occurs in my life because I am able to get through it with my sanity and hopefully some small measure of grace. I know exactly how your daughter feels. Everything about me is intense. I work hard, I love hard, I play hard and I give life every bit I have and some days it's enough and on the days it isn't I retreat a little, take a few deep breaths and keep on going, because honestly? What choice do I have? I'm certainly not a quitter, I have people and things depending on me and it's certainly not in me to wimp out now. On some level the roller coaster becomes routine. And as you always remind me, consciously or not... I picked it.

It brings to the forefront of my life the notion of strong women. Not physically strong, although that is surely a part of it, but more than that there is a mental toughness and a resilience that comes from being battered about a bit by life and knowing when and how to kick back. My Mother is an incredibly strong woman when I think about it. She's seen my Dad through nearly 50 years of marriage, two children, multiple surgeries and illnesses, business successes and failures, a very late entry into the working world when I was a teenager and hell... let's face it... any high school drop out in her early 20s who looks her baby daughter in the face and then enrolls in night school on no sleep and no time just to finish so her children would be proud of her is one hell of a woman. There was never any question in our young lives as to whether or not we would be successful... just the question of what we would be successful at. The last ten years have seen her retire, face two different cancers bouts, fight the fight of her life and come back swinging. I've rarely seen her cry. I've never seen her panic. I've seen her logically and methodically engineer her life and my father's life down the path they decided upon all those years ago. Bumps in the road and all, she's done it with grace and style. How could I not be just like her? How could I not want my daughter to be just like her?

It's exactly why I don't helicopter my child. I don't lie to her. I don't take her age appropriate choices away from her and I don't sugar coat her tiny little life. Sometimes there are disappointments. They make you stronger. Sometimes you have to scribble that heart attack on paper to understand for yourself why Daddy had one. Sometimes you have to learn to deal with what life throws at you and make the best of it.

Visitors in the night

A tiny blonde angel approached as I woke up a little bit ago. She was wearing her red uniform shirt, a red paw print jacket and a blue tinkerbell backpack. And that's it. Really. She extends her hand and says, "Hi my name is Jolly Outlaw, and I'm one of Robin Hood's band of merry misfits. I just wanted to come and visit." What a great way to wake up!

Personal-ity

First day of taking the kiddo to school went great. The TA in the class came up to me, introduced herself and told me how much of a little comedian my darling has become. So much so that when she finishes her worksheets early, she gets to go the the aides desk to get something advanced to work on and entertain the aide. I'm so thrilled they aren't trying to squash her already larger than life little personality!

Volunteers?

You just know it's going to be good when your kidlet enters the room with her art box under one arm, a remote control robot under the other, wearing a chef's hat decorated in cherries, and announces that she'll be needing a volunteer for her next trick.

You put your finger where?

Last night, after dinner and all that jazz, I'm trying to get ready for work. Kiddo is happily ensconced in the middle of my bed watching bugs bunny movies and sucking her fingers, sniffing her boo's paw, whatever. Or at least I think she is. The next thing I know, mid mascara and all, she is howling like death is eminent. I run into the bedroom and what do I see? She has taken my hot pink water bottle, striped the straw out of the straw hole, finished my drink and has her middle finger stuck in the straw hole. Poor thing cannot get her finger back out to save her life and oh yes, the panic has set in. So I try to gently remove it... no dice. I unscrew the bottle from the top to make it lighter and less cumbersome and she thinks I'm trying to chop off her fingers. She won't stop screaming either. So I go find the Dad, he comes running and it takes all three of us, ice, vegetable oil, twisting and tugging to finally get the thing off her poor finger. And it takes off a little bit of skin with it. So yes there's a little blood, some antibiotics and a band aid. And I, the mom, have finally gotten to the point that minor childhood accidents (or stupidity) are no longer traumatic for me. I couldn't stop laughing at her. So all bandaged up, she's wandering around the house giving everyone (including feline and k9 occupants) the finger and proclaiming that she'll never ever again be able to play with any of her toys because her finger shall surely shrivel and fall off by morning... .and then something about her not being special anymore. She is now the official president of the kindergarten drama queen club. Omg... it was hysterical.

Early Bordello Decor

One of my early semesters in college I lived with my Grandmother in the city. I could sit here and reminisce about the three block walk down tree lined streets every morning and afternoon, the aroma and the taste of really good coffee at the little shop adjacent the bus stop, the trek to and fro campus and the education I received. But last night for some reason, I dreamed of the bedroom she assigned me and found myself alternately shaking my head and smiling.

This room, the second bedroom in the house was straight out of the early 1900s, belonged in a brothel above a seedy saloon and deserved a fashionably dressed and painted lady smoking her cigarette through a long black tube standing outside her door waiting for a visitor.

It was a good sized room at the back of the house. It's only windows looked out over a covered patio so there was no real light source, save the window in the walk-in closet that looked out onto a tiny side street next to the house. A flick of the light switch - the kind that clicked on and off, not those silent things we have now - revealed a painted white door and similar popcorn ceiling, adorned with those sparkly doodads that twinkled in the moonlight and had you lying in bed at night thinking of the night sky.

From the door way, directly in front of you was a large four poster bed, usually draped in a white tufted chenille spread, with it's high mahogany head board and equally high foot board. The corner posts always took me to the place where elegant white silk scarves bound delicate wrists in some unspoken and never ending game of passion. I think the white spread and matching accent pillows were grandma's attempt at propriety in a riotous field of color which she clearly did not decorate herself.

To the right of the bed sat one of two matching mahogany night stands, a cream colored lamp and a tall bureau that lounged against the wall next to a simple queen anne wing chair. On the far side of the bed sat the other night stand, same lamp, and a squat six drawer dresser. At the end of the bed against a smooth plaster wall I get the impression of book cases with glass fronts, but I cannot recall exactly. I close my eyes and see leather bound first editions accented with dainty thimbles from her collection and grandfather's many elephant figurines. Yes... they were there. I inherited those and I will cherish them as I did him.

So far nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose that's true. I spent many an hour sitting on that queen anne chair, with it's deep maroon crushed velvet covering, stroking the silky fringe that cascaded from it, like tassels from a burlesque queen. Reading mostly. Studying the likes of Plato, Shakespeare, O' Henry. Sometimes I put down the student version, run my fingers across the rippled leather of the first editions and if she had a copy, read it from there. It somehow felt more authentic, more worldly to smell the old paper, hear the pages crack and rustle as I turned them and tried to make sense of the allegories that often escaped me. I could get the gist of it. I could understand the stories, but often my youth and inexperience refused me the subtleties.

I recall waking on the first of many mornings while I stayed there. It was winter, cold and dark in the house. I think it was a Sunday and I still had unpacking to do. I snapped on a light, swung my feet to the floor and that's when it hit me and I couldn't help but giggle. My bare toes ran decadently through the very expensive and very soft burnt orange shag carpet that adorned the floor. Between the tufts of chenille, the crushed velvet, the smoothness of the mahogany and the carpet, it was veritable tactile feast for the taking. And I did.

No worries though, the feast continued on, chiefly with the walls. Two were painted and two were carefully wallpapered. I can't remember exactly which, but I believe the wall behind the bed was painted lemon yellow. Yes... I see it now, complete with the decorative base boards done in a contrasting orange a shade or two darker than the carpet. It ended abruptly at either end as the east and west walls were covered in giant hibiscus flowers of magenta, deep crimson, yellow and orange, all flocked onto the wallpaper and instantly a profusion of spring run amok in the dead of winter.

Lamps sparkled with tiny crystals and puffs of bright cotton dangling from the trim. Dressers were scarfed with rich linens that carried through the theme of spring time in a whorehouse. A copper pitcher and bowl leaned arrogantly against the wall on top of the bureau, as if daring me to move them. Fine china bells from all over the world lined the window sill in the walk-in and dainty satin padded hangers in a multitude of color held dresses wrapped in plastic straight from the cleaners.

Despite the wild array of color and style, it became my space. Not one I would have chosen for myself, but one that I grew to love just the same. After a long day of school, an every longer work day, I would retreat into this room, this apparition for which I could conjure up dancing girls, Calliope music and masculine laughter. For a moment the world seemed a better place for it having been there.

Taxi Cab Confessions

Even after all of my years spent in large and cosmopolitan cities, I still get a faint buzz from standing street side, hailing a taxi with my bare hands, stepping inside, instructing the driver and being whisked away to wherever I wish to go. There's a subtle erotic pleasure in submitting to the confinement, of being escorted and conducted effortlessly through the traffic and always the possibility that this car could be going just about anywhere. There is an aspect of power that appeals as well. Power in being the employer, however temporary it may be. Power in the anonymity. In the upholstered backseat of my car for hire and behind the smoked glass and tinted windows, I can be whomever I wish to be, albeit briefly.

It's addictive, the electricity of being driven, without question or judgment, toward something, someone that only I know. The not so subtle gaze out the window at other drivers, landmarks I've only glanced at in passing before serve only to whet my appetite. Anticipation and excitement bump up against each other, sparking a fire within me as the car approaches its destination.

It isn't just the anticipation or the empowerment, it's the sense of being taken away. Even for just a little while

Distinct Differences

Sex has intent, motion, emotion written all over it. Erotic is an impression, a preference, it just is what it is.

Who told you life was fair?

That unmistakable Virginia Slim smoldering lazily between fingers, tipped with long and immaculate talons covered in the dark, ambiguous shade of Rouge Noir, the heavy-lidded sapphire eyes rimmed expertly in grey kohl, the smoke curling sensuously around lush lips that still bear smudges of wineberry from last evening, she stares into the dawn of twilight with an air of insolent defiance.

Cheap pink wine in plastic held to a visage which takes on the semblance of badly kneaded dough thrown around on rough pavement, nostrils staring back at the world like a small pair of worn-out sockets, polo shirt a trashy shade of tangerine clashing loudly with badly-dyed, heavily teased, blonde streaks. The slack features take on an unsightly sheen under the unforgiving glare of sunlight. Her stare reflects her desperation far beyond any provocation.

Decadence clearly looks better on some people than on others

Divergent

You can't put me in a box... but I'd love it if you'd tie me up. Just a thought.

Incongruity

Interpretation of the handsome husband's likely inner dialogue whenever I've launched passionately into a new project: nice ta-ta's, man, really nice, can't stop looking - but are they worth the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride I endure every time she opens her mouth?

Just saying... it totally explains that dazed look, the glazed over eyes and the faint furrow of his brow... like he just can't seem to make sense of the incongruity of it all.

Irony

Painted neatly on a 4 inch square canvas, it made a profound statement. In the center sat the universe, painted as though one was looking at it from above. It was surrounded by the female symbol in gold and at the top off to a jaunty angle was a large diamond in a solitaire setting. It gave the appearance of having three layers but seamlessly being one unified symbol. Plain flat gray surrounded the image. So telling. I burst out laughing. First at the truth and wisdom of it's message, and second at it's creator in the midst of mad wedding planning.


And I wonder to myself: just how many woman have their entire universe defined by their marriage?

And then I wonder to myself: how many of 'those' women know that wedding rings were once a symbol of ownership. Yes ownership. Wow.

Super Sonic Evening

It's late evening yesterday and my love texts me his desire for the juicy goodness that is a supersonic cheeseburger, tater tots and a cherry vanilla dr. pepper. The flu crap has gotten the better of him and he feels like death. Only this combination that he clearly is not supposed to be eating will make it better.

I drive into the little stall, briefly peruse the menu to see if they've added anything relatively healthy and/or anything new that sounds better than a cheeseburger. Alas they have not. And there is no mention of the macaroni and cheese bites that the wee one has fallen head over heels in love with.

I order the Wacky pack chicken strips and tots for the kiddo, the cheese burger combos for my love and myself and then I inquire politely about the missing mac and cheese bites. They no longer serve them, but the order boy with his deep voice and deceptively mature sound introduces me to his utter lust for their new cinnabites. As he describes them as soft, warm, puffy bites of cinnamon and frosting, I see in my head the white dribbles of sweet frosting dripping from his mouth and fingers as he smiles and reaches up to lick his fingers rather than reach for a napkin. WTF? (me thinks I need to stop dreaming about it and start getting laid more often!)

I giggle and say no thanks. He repeats back the order to make sure he has it correct and I'm wondering what a man who has such a great voice and a fine attention to detail is doing working here. He should be working for me. He asks me how I 'll be paying for my meal and though I'm tempted to say something very different, I palm my visa and tell him I'll slide my card at the order station. He tells me it'll be out in a moment and that's when things get interesting... to say the least.

Order boy: Well... you have yourself a super sonic evening.
SD: Thank you, you do the same.
Order boy: I will...(hesitation) well... at least I'll try.... if you will
SD: Ok then... I'll try too, really.
Order boy: (soft laughter) wow... guess we're in for a great night.
SD: I certainly hope so. (cue more soft laughter)
Order boy: me too.

I sit in the darkened car waiting a moment listening to The Fray's "Over your head" and that makes me giggle. Order boy personally brings dinner to my car and the first thing I notice is that he's fucking hot. Dark tanned in the middle of winter always does it for me, that 5 o'clock shadow is sexy and those eyes... deep pools of shimmering chocolate. And he's about 15 years younger than I am. And he doesn't seem to care, as I'm juggling cups of soda and he's towering above me looking down at me, down my shirt, and then he's offering to take my empty starbucks cup to the trash. And I think I see a wink, as I tip him nicely and he thanks me and once again tells me in that low slow drawl to have a super sonic nite. You betcha boy... anytime.

Next you know I'll be turning forty and trolling cougar websites looking for boys half my age.

50 Words - Accessorize

She exited the bedroom in a shimmering cocktail mini-dress replete with twinkling rhinestones and shiny spangles, which caught the light of the nearest chandelier, blinding her waiting date. Without thinking, he asked if she planned to accessorize with a lamppost and public defender. She introduced him to the door.

50 Words - Advice to a son

Affairs without longevity still have purpose, he said,
smiling down at his young son. Test drive long distance
love for experience points and frequent-flier miles, or
date a reckless redhead just to taste the sweet
heartache and fat-lip she'll inflict upon you.
Don't believe me? Go ask your mother.

50 Words - Reassurance

Once in a while, in the middle of the night, I wake in a cold sweat after another dream of doom and gloom. A hand snakes the width of the bed, under blankets and through body pillows until I feel that familiar warmth; reassured again that he is still here.

New Light

"I haven't seen you in like, forever, where have you been?" He said to me last evening, late, thus opening the door to the inevitable banter about this, that, the weather, how long it's taking summer to get the hint and scram, you know... the predictable chatter between a man and a woman who have just a casual work related interest in one another. I answered, the usual, training, writing, moving, vacations not spent in the pursuit of all things happiness. He knew already, everyone does. "And your husband?" Three words, braced with the hint of danger.

"He's good... now." Standard reply, but this man knows me better than that. A raised eyebrow, a twitch of facial muscles, "Now?" I begin to explain the tedium and complexity of the numerous trips to the hospital, the surgeries, the pain, the recovery, the dreaded superbug, it's aftermath and finally the long, slow, painful and yet delightful and lovely road to recovery. He nods appreciatively throughout and I see something in him that has gone lacking in others. An understanding? A flicker of self discovery perhaps? It seems I've never really given this man credit for the depth that I've only now discovered. I wonder why I didn't see it before.

This man and the handsome husband are roughly the same age - give or take a couple months, they served the Army at the same time, same function and same base, they each have brothers, they almost look like they could be brothers, they have wives and each has a daughter. Both know how it feels to be separated from that female offspring for a period of time. Yes, there is understanding, there is the what-if-it-were-me thoughts, there is compassion and I'm left seeing this man, who typically gives out nicknames and makes a thousand cute jokes as he breezes past, in a completely different light now. And I find myself thinking that it's good, very good, once in a while to discover someone with such a special soul still exists in the universe.

50 Words - The Voices

The true casualties in this business are the voices that never leave my head. Years pass, memories fade, the sharpness of their realities dulls my brain, but each of their voices remain strong, clear, and daunting, whispering their sad tale, crying out their pain, lamenting their fate, each one unique and distinct.

Molasses

I found a jar of molasses on sale at the store tonight as I wandered about with my basket half full and my mind half empty of ideas for dinner. I love dark, robust black-strap molasses. Especially on cornbread. Some people use honey, butter, jam, whatever, just not me. My Dad always taught us to save our square of cornbread until we had finished the rest of our meal, usually Mom's fabulous chili and salad. And then he showed us how to lay it out in two perfect half slabs in the middle of the round dinner plate, dab on a smear of soft butter, and drizzle the thick, dark, rich syrup over it until it began to sink into the spongy square and puddle on the plate. I fondly recall the gooey forkfuls of contrasting textures and tastes. The slight crunch and blandness of the bread, the pungent, spicy almost dangerous tang of that mysterious liquid. It was always such a satisfying end to a delicious meal. Memory upon memory raised to greet me and I realized I was still standing in the middle of the baking isle holding this hefty jar of precious nectar. I love the jars, either green or yellow labels depending on variety. Robust or black-strap. I love them both equally, one's just a tad more complex and mysterious than the other. So I tossed it casually into my basket and bought it even though we already had part of a jar at home. Impulsive? Perhaps so. But oddly satisfying nonetheless. The jar at home was larger, mostly empty I reasoned, plastic and with a screw top that never stuck. I hate jars that stick and hurt my hands to open them. When I got home I opened the new jar and poured its contents into the one I already had, the jar that pleased my hands. It's a quirk of mine... an odd one I know. But I have to have things organized and in order. Two partial jars of anything... and that's what would have happened eventually when I could no longer resist the pull and the whisper of the new jar, would drive me insane. So when it was full and the new one empty, I went to screw the lid on the empty and toss it in the trash. The smell... that wonderful, spicy, rich and deep smell that I love assaulted my senses. And that's when it hit me. You remind me of molasses. After all these years... who knew?

50 words - Unsex

"So long." I lamented the length of time it's been since I've made love, "We're talking years now... plural." Disgust. Anger. Emotions long denied come flooding forth. "Self love, that's what it's all about." Laughter. A blend of feminine and masculine. "Who are you trying to convince... me or yourself?"

Hit Upon

Eastbound on the title street of my city, in rush hour traffic, sitting oddly still at a green light at the corner of 56th Ave, enjoying a catchy tune on the radio and the warmth of the early fall sun, on my cell catching up the days events with my bff, I look to my left and see a small silver car. It's westbound, but the streets in the midst of downtown are narrow and as we are both occupying the inside lane, it's occupant and I are but arms length apart. We could indeed reach out and touch one another, and I do believe that is his intention. The driver, obviously is male, and cute too. I recall a polo shirt, a glimpse of denim, close cropped blond hair, a slim face, bright white smile and blue eyes. He smiles. I smile back, I think. I am wearing dark glasses and an oversize peach t-shirt so I know he can't see me... at least not much of me. He scribbles something on a business card and hold it up. I can't see all of it, but I'm sure it is a phone number. He nods. I raise my eyebrows, mildly amused, and I tell my bff what is happening. We enjoy a chuckle which this man takes as my interest in his antics. He motions for me to roll down the window and holds the card out for me to take. I decline politely with a flash of wedding rings and drive on. A first for me I think... being hit upon in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon.

50 Words - Answers (a deux)

The simple questions she can answer without thinking will never be as important as those things which only one can learn by mistake. That's the crux of it really. It's what I meant when I said you cannot compare shallow textbook learning and memorization to the depths of my experience.

For along with those experiences come a mryiad of memories, indescribably joys, sheer pain, unthinkable losses, relentless grief, and ocassionally rage. Through the haze of disorganization, confusion and anguish comes speed, agility, ability and attitude; all things you know nothing of. When you begin to develop those, we'll talk.

50 Words - Velveteen Rabbit

Abandoned on a high shelf like an out of favor toy. Mostly forgotten, largely discarded, lonely and alone. Remembered once in a blue moon, when the urge strikes out of the blue. Hope springs, a smile graces my face, only to be dashed as you return me to my place.

50 Words - Sit Still Please

"Stop it! Let me go!" Punctuated pointedly, heatedly as she pries her tiny arm from my grasp. I glance around the waiting room. "Help me!" She shrieks, eyes flashing, darting, searching for a sympathetic soul to rescue her from this distress. My daughter is a two-year-old drama queen.

50 Words - Rembrandt's Light

"You've an old soul, where have you been?"
Face to face with her for the first time,
sizing each other up, I see us both in a new
light. It's the sunset's shadow, our history
together in this brief eternity. She's
Rembrandt's light, his lost love, his wife.
She is me.

50 Words - Art Of Good Phone

"Perv." Softly, she chuckled into the phone.

"You're as bad as I." He countered, the smile on his face evident despite the miles separating them.

"And you love it." She stretched, yawned, righted herself in the middle of her big brass bed pulling the linens with her.

"Indeed I do."

50 Words - Go Away

Eyes darting. Lips quivering. Sniffle. Pout. "Go away?" she asks solemnly - wide eyed. I point out the fish, ferrets, cats, humans; all still here. "Where Daddy?" whispered from the verge of tears. "Daddy go away." Hugs and tears all around. "I go away too?" Oh no my pet, never that.

50 Words - Everyone Has Secrets

With a distinctly feminine flair, scrawled in fat black ink, down low and at an angle, on the right wall of a bathroom stall, in a Goodwill store in Sun City, Arizona, on a totally random early Thursday evening: "After 40 years, I still love him and it kills me. "

75 Words - Chaos Theory

TV blaring. Street noise. Children screaming. Horns honking. Freight train rumbles past. Phone ringing. "You've got mail" shrieked from a far. Blackberry beeps and vibrates. I pay them no mind. Somewhere a stereo set too loud shorts out, "In my daughter's eyes I am a hero. I am strong and wise and I know no fear. But the truth is plain to see. She was sent to rescue me." And yes, I am deeply grateful.

Tell me no lies.

I read a blog post recently about what won't ever happen between a woman and her lover. She seemed to be almost mourning all those routine and mundane things - waking up together, having breakfast, discussing your day, chores, kid raising, falling asleep intertwined and generally falling in love.

I think she missed the spiel in life that says there's a difference between taking a lover and falling in love - one is about you and the other about someone else entirely. And the distinction is an important one. It's what keeps you sane in the face of sheer and overwhelming madness. It's the hesitation that keeps you from jumping off the cliff with both feet when you haven't considered how much damage the landing will do. It's what keeps you realistic when your heart rushes off on some wild impulse to see how green the grass is in the neighbor's yard. And most days I think the yard next door only looks so damn fabulous because I don't have to tend it. My yard? Hmm... it has some rough spots, some weeds, it constantly needs attention and watering, but the point is... it's mine and I chose it for reasons that don't have to make sens to anyone else. It brings me comfort, it treats me with kindness, affection and care. Most days it is exactly what I need whether or not I wish to admit it.

There's no saying that your lover can't or won't ultimately become the love of your life... it happens, but if you've already found the great love of your life, wouldn't you want to keep your carefully chosen lover in a whole separate place in your heart? And if you've found a great playmate and they occupy a wonderful place in your life and your heart, then why spoil it by taken them down off their pedestal and making them routine?

I think she also missed the notion that life is about possibilities and given time anything is possible too. It's not the point here.. the point was that she's bitching about having been given a rare opportunity to share a part of her that most people have no notions of. Why complain about being fortunate? Why whine because you can have both sides of the isle? But if she really wants a lifetime and not just the here and now I suppose it could ultimately be possible. And people always amaze me when they dismiss something simply because they never took the time to think it through. Would it be difficult and possibly painful all around? Sure. Would it be worth it to her? Perhaps. Not for me to decide. But impossible? Certainly not.

And yes... I'm the girl who asks why not, when being told no. So the simple answer to that is... just don't tell me no. It'll shut me up as sure as sliced bread is supposed to be the best thing since... hmm... I wonder what?

Normal

Besides the quip that goes 'normal is that half way point between what you want and what you're going to get' just what is normal? And why do the masses confuse normal with the statistically typical?

My mom started this you know.... when she said, if everyone else was jumping off a bridge would you do it to? No mom, of course not. But then again, now that I'm officially grown up, she says to me... by your age everyone has their career in hand, so it's time you had children, bought a home and settled down. Everyone??? or just because it's the statistically typical thing to do, I should be doing it? Yeah... that I think.

So here I am, stepping of that bridge... had the kid, managing the career and now... yeah, venturing forth into the dreaded process of buying a home. Yikes!

There's even a website now... for those of us normally challenged folks... www.isitnormal.com So you can indeed ask the question if something in your life is normal and get a pat answer. Ugh.

Fifty Words - Hope (Twice)

I heard her say it: When hope is all you have left, all you really have is hope. So said the woman who'd never been there, never lived perched precariously on the edge of that cliff. The truth is, when hope is all you have left, you really have nothing.

Continuing on...

Once you reach the point where hope remains the one constant in your existance, the commodity quickly becomes more than you can afford. Like the grand house on the hill, the dream car, the luxe furnishings: you can reach out blindly, stretch beyond your limits, but you'll never quite reach.

First Kiss

I get lost in the innocence of a first kiss.

Sometimes the most random of lines in a simple song are enough. I found myself lost deep in thought at the red light of a freeway on ramp. A horn honk from the frustrated man behind me in the shiny silver suv brought me back to reality. But I can't stop thinking about the spell that first kiss casts over a relationship. A man once said to me, "there's no second chance at a first kiss." Words so powerful I remember them, cling to them, allow them to wrap me tightly and take me away, all these years later. It was low, husky, matter-of-fact and it was intense.

And the moment? That not-totally unexpected, do you want me as much as I want you, first kiss? On a warm spring mid-day, in the midst of a tranquil field, sitting on a picnic bench watching the world go by and thinking of nothing but the sun on your shoulders and the splendor of the impending moment. Lips soft and gentle, yet a little demanding. Mine yielding and soft. The thoroughly masculine scent of soap and aftershave. Feeling the softness of a cotton tee shirt tight across his chest and bulging biceps as I run my fingertips lightly across him. Listening to the low slow moans of pleasure derived from finally breaking the anticipation to taste someone new, someone different. And when it was over and we could both step back and blink, breathe and think... he said to me, "such a nice mouth, I knew it would be." And I was lost once more in that moment.

Divorce

Finishing a good book is like a divorce, albiet an amicable one. Finishing writing one is exactly the same. Once it's over there is just no going back. You just have to jump head first back into the dating pool. Oh you could go back, do the friends with benefits same old sad song thing again, but why? You already know what each brings to the party and somehow I find that I'm wanting something new and exciting, fresh and invigorating... not the comfortable old slippers that I've always had.

But there is one thing, as old lovers always leave behind some small token of their affection for one another, collections of words do the same for me. I'll always feel great affection toward the characters I brought to life, to the words I brought to the page. They will always be a part of me, a part of what makes me whole.

So yes... after more than two years, a dozen working titles, more than a few tears shed and greater than 120,000 words, I am done. And I am glad to be so.

hmm...

It's not just a daydream if you decide to make it your life.

--Train

Violated

...asked for advice from a genie in a bottle of jim beam and she lied to you.

I heard it today in the midst of an otherwise incredibly hickish whiny country song. But it made me smile. What did you expect? Ask the wrong person, get the wrong answer. Fairly simple stuff, no?

So watching tv tonight, the theme repeats itself as a young couple obviously together, yet obviously so not together walk into a bar and onto the dance floor. She is older, presumably the wiser of the two. And yet not so much. I was distracted by John Mayer on stage. Boy needs a hair cut and he's still hotter than pavement on bare feet in the summer. He sang my favorite new song, Waiting On The World To Change. Warms my heart and makes me feel not so much the freak I usually do. Anyway, I digress, the couple dances to the song and then she moves to the bar for a drink as the other half finds someone else to amuse himself with. The bartender signals her that someone at the end of the bar wants to buy her a drink. She says no thank you with a flip of her hair, a smile and runs her finger over her mouth. Is it really no? Or is it tease, flirt, coy dip of the head, and maybe later? When does no really mean no? When it's whispered in the dark after the clothes come off? When she refuses the drink the first time? When the tears begin to fall? When it's screamed in terror and pain? Come on... we all do it? We don't really say what we mean any more than we ask for what we really want or need. How's a man supposed to know? Or is that just a huge cop out and I'm a big sucker?

She picks up a drink. Supposedly the one she bought herself although its merely implied. Her vision begins to blur and the room begins to spin. I'm left thinking that someone slipped her drugs rather than she's had too much to drink. No overt signs of more than one drink anyway. But I'm paranoid about that kind of thing, so I never know when to trust what I'm sensing. And it's not that I hate men or don't trust them... well I don't and with good reason, it's more the bar scene that creeps me out. Then the show cuts away to something else and for a moment her impending moment of peril is lost to me.

I next get a good look at her naked back and GBF hair in some generic hotel room in Vegas. The only problem is the burgundy satin sheets. Not something one would see in a cheap motel is it? Anyway, she's alone - waking slowly and obviously has no idea where she is. It's clear she's been raped. Not from the bruises - there aren't any. Not from the scratches or scrapes - none of those either. It's the look on her face when she realizes that some man she can't remember, doesn't know, and didn't ask nicely, did god only know's what with her unfortunately willing body. Yeah, let's get that one straight. Drugs and or alcohol have a way of making a woman's body compliant where her mind never would.

Like we all haven't been there before? Finding ourselves disappointed for one reason or another. Deciding that the best remedy for our current state of loneliness is a warm shoulder, a cold bottle or both. Preferably both. Like we haven't all woken up once or twice wondering where we were, why we were there, what we had done and with whom? It's the why am I naked, sore and hmm... who does that delicious chest belong to? And do I really have the guts to look at his face before I bolt outta here? Sometimes it just works out better if you don't know. But for most of us, we've a least had the hazy alcoholic fog lift a bit and the puzzle pieces fall closer into place and it becomes somewhat clear just how stupid we've been. Or if you're very lucky, how good it was. She doesn't have that luxury. She doesn't remember. She never will. She didn't have a choice.

As I watch the room come info focus and see her face, a voice in my head is screaming - grab the fucking cell phone and dial 9-1-1. And the cynical side of me is saying - why the fuck bother? They won't believe her and won't even try to find him and it's not like I ever did the right thing so why should she? And when she steps into the shower and hot water rains down over her body washing away any potential evidence of the crime, I want to cry for her, cry right along with her. The law enforcement side of me cries "no" realizing that there no longer will ever be a chance in hell of making him responsible for his crimes. And the woman in me understands just how many scortching hot showers it will take to feel clean again. A lifetime. More than that. Maybe never. I'm still waiting.

Incidentially the show is "to be continued..." like I don't already have some idea of how next week will go? She won't tell anyone. It'll eat away at her like cancer until she can't stand it any longer. She'll try to exact her own cheap brand of revenge, not realizing that even if she gets what she thinks she wants it'll never be enough to make up for what he took from her. And then she'll be back to asking a genie in a bottle for advice that won't help her anyway.

Bitter? Maybe a little... but the fact that I can watch it and even reflect a bit without completely loosing it... is a Martha Stewart Good Thing.

Field of dreams

I stood there quietly, humbled, in front of him. Eyes closed, head down, ashamed of myself, terrorized nightly about what had transpired. Snapshots in my brain of a tiny curious hand curled tightly around menacing black steel. Images of her smile, now with a hint of pearly white baby teeth. Sounds of her sweet giggles. Such contrasts, those images that wake me drenched in a cold sweat.

"Well," He said to me, "it's a place of lost innocence, of broken dreams. No matter what the situation is, it boils down to somebody's world being shattered."

I looked down at the markers, the ribbons and flowers, the stuffed animals and toys that decorated the rows of tiny rows of flat granite plaques nestled neatly in the well manicured lawn.

After he said that, I felt like I could relax a little. Yes, my dreams of safety and security were crushed but my baby was alive and I learned a valuable lesson. The innocence lost was mine, not hers, and I didn't have much left anyway.

What are dreams anyway? They're the plates you can afford to hurl against the wall as long as the important things escape unscathed.

Truly Madly Deeply

I'll be your dream
I'll be your wish
I'll be your fantasy

Thank you Savage Garden... no one could have said it any better. That's just what I was thinking.

Harmful Events

It started with a piece of metal. Small, twisted, heavy... a piece of discarded road debris. The flotsam of the highways. Inocuous, deceptively innocent and often overlooked miscelani. In the heat and traffic of the late afternoon the first harmful event occurred. The casualty? One radiator. One missed day of work. One little silver car. The fate of the metal? A little more twisted, bounced a little farther down the highway, became airborne, sailed through the air toward the second most harmful event. The casualty? Physically... one more car, 75 feet of fencing, a lot of sweat, some time. In reality and in more human terms? A life as we know it.

Things get hazy at this point. A lot of suppositions, drawn conclusions and educated guesses. At what point did the twisted hunk of metal crash through the windshield? At what point did it impact the driver's face? How did he manage to travel through the median that many hundreds of yards without going into oncoming traffic? Why didn't he brake before vaulting over that embankment to the roadway 25 feet below? Did the car roll or just slam unimpeeded into the asphault? Does any of it really matter?

I stood at the top of the embankment watching a purple rope stretch to the breaking point as it was tied quickly to a bumper and used to rapel down to the car. I knew I'd never make it down that way. I waited. The sun was hot on my bare arms and sweat was already started to bead up. It was quiet despite the roar of the passing traffic and the whine of the engine still left running. The quiet is a mental thing. A way to stop thinking about the horrific Mr. Toadesque wild ride this must have been.

The blaring of sirens and foghorns breaks the revere as a sleek yellow firetruck screams toward the scene, quickly followed by a more traditional red firetruck. Ketchup and mustard strike me and my stomach growls. How can I be hungry while I'm watching fire and ems personel extricate this person and work him. Five minutes of watching turn into ten, turn into twenty as a yellow helicopter approaches hurridly from the east, sets down on the closed roadway. Twenty minutes turn into thirty as the blades stop spinning and the number of people grows around the victim in the middle of the closed roadway. They work him for forty minutes solid. Establish airway and control bleeding. He is combative. As he fights the pool of blood underneath him grows and spreads. Firemen in turn out gear move away from him to let helicopter crew get closer. The pool of blood spreads in an oval now... away from the victim. He fights as they try to stabalize his neck. More blood spreads as a hand moves away from his neck and relieves pressure on his severed corrated artery. Spatter and spray are everywhere. The oval pool of darkening, thicking blood is massive, larger than a manhole cover. It is ominious, sickening and it's beginning to smell of copper and rotten fruit.

The helicopter takes off finally... some forty minutes later with patient on board. I move back to the car to get some water and cool myself. The stereo is still on. The song? Another one bites the dust. And I think to myself of a hundred sick jokes. I keep it to myself. For now. It's the nature of the work. It sickens me to think that I no longer have the capicity to care. Maybe it's just that there's so much to care about that I have a hard time picking what to focus my short attention span on.

Later, after I've made my way down to the scene, I take in my surroundings. I'm standing in the middle of a two lane road, deserted because it's closed on both ends not far from here. The detrius of human existance is everywhere. Empty cigarette packs, crushed plastic soda bottles, a pair of abandoned sunglasses, papers, a starbucks bottle with the label faded into oblivion. I know what it is based on the familiar shape and my frequent consumption of tasty bottled frappucinos. Actually I despise the bottled ones, think they have a nasty aftertaste, but I would mainline caffine if I could.. and if you drink them quickly they're not so bad. That's how far I have sunk in my caffine addiction. But I digress. For once this is not really about me.

These items existed before this latest harmful event. I look across the road to the car I've so far avoided staring at. It's some random metalic color, not silver. Not quite sure what. I think it was a four door. Not anymore. It's scrap now. The back window is gone. The windshield is a mass of greenish safety glass smashed into a million little pieces. It is liberally sprayed with quickly darkening and drying blood. The doors are twisted, the axles bent and broken. The back bumper is forelornly gazing upon us from 25 feet away. The roof is caved in on one side, lending some creedence to the idea that it may have indeed rolled. The trunk is open and smashed and it's contents are spilled across the roadway . It looks like what my living room looks like on any given day after P is done emptying her toy box all over the floor. The medics have bundled all of their spent supplies into a bag and tossed it casually into the back seat. Like anyone really wants to see that later on. An ID is extracted from the car. It took has blood all over it and we have no real concrete idea if that is the driver. No one could get a good look at what was left of his face. We think it's him.

On the ground before me are broken golf clubs, gym clothes half out of their bag, the odd athletic shoe, paperwork, a green towel, cds which have escaped their holder and a backpack. The sun is glinting off the backs of the cds which are all I can see. I wonder about the kind of music he listens to but I cannot turn them over. I spot one that is face up in the mud. It is handmade, perhaps by the vicim. Someone with masculine handwriting anyway. Dashboard Confessional. The irony doesn't escape me, but it fails to amuse me.

The firemen are preparing to leave, gathering equipment and turning on the water supply from their truck to scub away the dirt and the blood that coats them despite wearing gloves. There is literally blood everywhere. They are nice enough to wash down the oval pool of blood in the middle of the closed roadway that we all know is still there. We've all been deftly avoiding it like the plague. The water washes away most of the evidence. Not all. We all still know it was there and avoid it like the plague. Like someone elses's blood is a bad omen or something. It's like not stepping on cracks because you are superstitious. Pssst... don't step where the blood used to be... it's bad karma dude.

The witnesses come and go with the fire people. We are left alone, just the five of us, to measure and diagram and work the scene. 25 feet from the top of the highway to the bottom of the street below. Tape measures survive the fall better than the car did. From fog line to right of way, telephone pole to canal, we plot out the scene, measure everything and fill two pages with numbers I hope will be helpful later. I am both amazed and impressed with the precision and the effort being put into the task at hand. We teach them well and let them lead the way. Their spirit of teamwork is inspiring.

I've been watching the sky off to the north for a while. Dark clouds have formed and the dust is beginning to roll in. We need to finish quickly before it hits. And in an instant the wall of dust is upon us. And as the skys darken we all reach for of all things sunglasses - anything - in an effort to protect our eyes from the swirling dirt particles. Our scene is being scattered and removed from us as is the top layer of our skin. I try to hold a clipboard up in front of my face to keep the dust at bay. My lips are chapped. My skin is pink and raw. My clothes are filthy and my hair has escaped the pony tail I put it up in. The wind is so fierce it's about to knock us over. There is no cover, no place to escape this torture. I can still taste the dirt in my mouth hours later. And as the dust slowly passes and we hurridly finish up, the rain comes.

The rain smells clean as it hits the desert floor. It is cleansing and I raise my head toward the sky, jut my chin out and let the drops fall upon my face. They are cool and I am hot. They are fresh and I am jaded. They were unexpected and I've become predictibly numb. They are a welcome change for with them they bring thunder and lightening which distract me from my wonder about our victim. I feel the calm come over me and I ask for what seems most pressing. Be with this young man and do what's best for him. A rumble of thunder and a jaged light slicing though the dark sky. They hear. They are there.

And then we are gone. We get back in the car as the rain begins to sheet and visibility falls to zero. All evidence has been removed quietly and efficiently as though nothing ever happened. Three orange barricades neatly placed in the median next to the downed fence are the only hint that anything was ever amiss.

Shows over folks, nothing more to see here.

50 Words - Falling In Love

She said it tonight and I beamed a radiant smile from ear to ear. "Mama." Plain as day. Loud and as clear as possible on a cell-speaker-phone in her little girl, whiskey-husky-smoke filled room voice that she got from me. I fell in love again today.

50 Words - Sunshine

Last night while lying in bed with the peanut between the handsome husband and myself I discovered just how blessed I am. Her laughter inspires me. His laughter excites me. Between the two of them my world has light, hope, laughter, sunshine and wonder like none I've ever known before.

Burnt Out Torchlight Along The Pathway.

"I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps 'Oh look at that!' Then - whoosh, and I'm gone... and they'll never see anything like it ever again, and they won't be able to forget me - ever."

It's an old Jim Morrison quote. It was how a young, energetic, delightfully charming young man described himself on more than one occasion. He could recite that quote verbatim. It meant that much to him. It was prophetic, just a little. Oddly disturbing to be reading it tonight in light of what has happened. From the fiery died red hair to the crooked smile, to the intensity with which he approached his short life, there was nothing about him that ever said inconsequential. There are a thousand 22 year old boys who are interchangably typical and completely forgettable.

Why take away a man who had so much more to live and so much to give? Why? Just to make the world a darker place, to extinguish a light that we enjoyed decorating our world. That makes no sense. A reality check perhaps? To show us how perishable we really are? To make us feel unsafe and to remind us once more that everything in life is temporary and leave me feeling again that everyone leaves my life before I'm ever ready to let them go? It's the bitterness and the hours talking. It's the anger beginning to set in. Logically I know all that.

I remember the last time I saw his face. I was slow dancing barefoot around the livingroom, the only music in my head, my beloved peanut tucked up under my chin. It's the sweet spot... the one that makes me feel whole and brings me peace, much the same way his mother must have once upon a time felt about him. He was watching us. Not staring, just taking it all in. I wonder now what he must have been thinking in that nearly 23 year old brain of his.

I think sometimes that he was considering his future. The one he had planned with the wonderful young woman who loved him dearly and deeply. The one he hopefully someday would learn to love just as much. I know he had that in him. It's just sometimes slower coming in men than young women. I know they dreamed together of their future. She would tell me once in a while of lying in bed next to him, feeling whole, wishing, hoping, planning, scheming and dreaming of the next right thing for them. They loved each other now.... and she always expected to love him 20, 30 years from now. She's gonna make it... he never will.

I said to him as we shared a moment before leaving "be safe." He looked at me with his head tipped sideways and that impossibly crazy hair hanging in his face. I ran a finger down the side of his face, took his chin in my hand and kissed his forhead. He ducked his head a little. It wasn't his time to be thinking about growing up, acting with a little healthy caution. Timing is such a personal thing. It's everything. I know it sounded odd coming from me but we talked for a moment. He listened earnestly, intently... but in the end it didn't matter. I keep seeing things. Little snatches of little scenes over and over in my head. All of them dark. None of them positive. Just really an impression of something unsettled and negative around him, of some impending pain I wished I could spare him. And nothing concrete that would satisfy him or me for that matter. I wish I could have explained it better to him, but I don't really understand it myself. It's not like there is evil music playing as the woman creeps down the stairs to the cellar in a bad horror flick and everyone in the theater is yelling at her not to go down into the cellar. I wish it were that simple.

It happens sometimes. An impression or an image that comes along at the worst possible time when I have no time to think or analyze it. And I hate that I get a little bit here and there and no good idea of what it is that I'm really sensing. I feel cheated that I could not see enough to tell him to stop, sit back and watch from the sidelines for a while.

With him I chalked it up to the craziness that is being 22 and living on your own, making sometimes poor choices and behaving like a kid. But honestly no more so than any other young man his age, living with his talant and his gifts. When I saw him perform on stage I was captivated by his presense and his ability to hold the room. It was raw talent, a little rough around the edges and in need of refinement, but clearly the gift was there. He was a good kid. Really. Seriously. He worked hard, had good relationships with his parents and loved his girl. And he was like a hummingbird in some ways. The way Nathanial Hawthorne described one anyway. If you sat still long enough and watched, he just might alight upon you. And you were in for a treat when he did.

And then one Sunday he made the worst possible decision of his short life, experimented one too many times with stuff better left to the street junkies and wound up dead at the bottom of an apartment complex swimming pool. Quietly, effortlessly and unintentionally dead. What he left behind is far more complex and painful than I'm sure he ever thought it would be. And no one can explain to me why or why not one of us who loved him had the power to stop it.

What good is a gift if you're only allowed the part of it that frustrates the hell out of you and not enough to do anyone any good?

42.

We spent the end of his 42nd birthday laying in bed eating ice cream. I could tell you it was good. Good in a way ben and jerry only understand. Pfish food good. We did a complete post-mortem on the doctor's appointment that I didn't get to go to. White count at 170,000 is not good. We knew that. The tests start Monday and don't stop. It's like a carousel at a carnival. The one that scares the littles with it's music and constant revolutions. He's going to have some hard choices to make once they tell him what his options are. I already know what he will chose. And I know I won't like it. I told him that whatever we find out next week I'll support his decisions. It's not easy to let someone you love go, ya know. But I can't force him deeper into hell because I'm selfish. The truth is I'm not ready to let him go. I doubt I'll ever be. But it's time to grow up and see that it's not about me anymore. It never really was. Maybe it is the way it was always supposed to be.

Living

He knew as well as anyone who had been diagnosed with a disease such as his that it changed your life. Permanently. But it was still his life. The only one he knew for sure he had. And it was a good life to boot. He had stopped asking why eons ago. Fate? Kismet? In the end he supposed the why of it wouldn't really make much difference. In fact on some level he didn't want to know if this was his karmic bitch-slap for something he had done. Or for that matter, payback for something he hadn't done that he should have. It just mattered that it was destined to be this way. It dawned on him one particularly cold and lonely night in the dead of a long harsh winter that occasionally ignorance truly is blissful. There just might be circumstances where not knowing what he knew could be infinitely preferable to those things which he knew for certain.

Learning to make more than the best of it was his latest quest. Living as gracefully and as unapologetically as possible in a world where society expected him to disappear into the shadows like some sort of thief who steals away into the night is one tall order. The initial spikes of anger that had coursed through his veins had mellowed like fine red wine into a more subtle shade of bitterness. It was counterproductive to his cause to dwell outwardly on emotions that were unquestionably costly to his sanity. Bitterness was almost as expensive as the hope he could no longer afford either. He kept it to himself. Successfully most of the time too. There was no more looking backwards at where he'd been. No more hoping, wishing, waiting for the doctors to tell him they'd made a mistake. Gotten it all wrong. No more sitting idle strumming his fingers on the arm of the easy chair. If he was going to leave this life any time soon, he needed to go out on the highest of all high-notes, after having lived a life free of regrets.

The act of trying to stay positive was about channeling absolute fear into something more. Something tangible. Something of substance. Something that had a lasting effect on humanity when it seemed his time to make a difference was running a little short. Somdays it was liberating really, knowing what he knew. No need to worry about famine, plagues or pestilence. No fear of natural disasters or overindulging in an illicit vice or two, now and then. No apologizing to a seemingly perfect world for making them uncomfortable in the face of his stark and frank imperfections. He knew his death. He had looked it square in the eye and defiantely shaken it's cold hand. He refused to be intimidated by it's presence in his life. Before long he and the bastard were on a first name basis.

Solace

Two cars parked on a deserted side street devoid of lights. One masculine black work truck and one flirty dark sports car... a low to the ground racing model. Two bodies silhouetted in the scant moonlight, their faces obscured... their intentions not so much. She leaned on the hood of the second car, between the cars really, with her head tilted back and looking up at him. Her dark hair cascaded down around her shoulders, her tight sweater and dark jeans showing off her ample curves. He stood in front of her looking down, dark jeans hugging his hips, tee shirt and overshirt untucked, unbuttoned and a little askew. He leaned in toward her and she lifted a protective hand to his chest. There was a familiarity between them that was unmistakable. Friends? Perhaps. Lovers? Yes. Oh yes. Their voices low, carrying on a conversation meant for their ears only. Intensely treasuring their stolen moments together. The sound of low laughter, of contentment and sincerity would have given them away had anyone been paying attention. Just two random lovers, neither where they should have been on a late weekday evening, out with someone they never ever thought they'd cross paths with, on a desolate street in the dark center of any big city on any given day.

He caught me watching them. I should have looked away. Embarassed. He assumed I would. Without flinching or blinking I stared back, enjoying him enjoying my voyerism.

The Phoenix

broken
bitter
jaded
cynical
drifting
lost
alone
hurting
in pain
weary
at war
exhausted
surrendered
humbled
ready
longing
wanting
aching
surrounded
passionate
inspired
desired
awed
ravenous
renewed
afire
loved
confident
strong
aware
at peace
alive

At least I'm working on the parts I cannot yet find my way to feel.

He said, She said

He said he knew what she had been thinking.
She said that left her feeling unnerved,
quite.
He said he read all that she wrote.
As safe as she felt,
she still said it made her nervous
He said that as good as he was,
She was far better.
He said he was in awe,
and he didn't say it lightly.
She said thank you.
She was left feeling that it was
by far,
the greatest compliment anyone
had ever given her.

Dandelions

Perhaps it would be easier if the footsteps were four rather than two, but nothing's worth doing if you can't do it by yourself, if only to prove that you still have the ability, the knowledge. You can always rediscover what you thought you'd missed out on. You can never live the same moment twice, but a moment never dies and it's always ready to be born. Hold too tightly and it'll all slip through slender fingers that strain to reach truth but fall short and land on passion instead. Truth, that elusive beast, cannot be tamed. It cannot be caged. It cannot be owned. But it certainly can be felt.

You can push your body to the point of exhaustion, to the point of breakdown, to the point of pure and utter destruction. The soul will live on for as long as it pleases, regardless of you. Perhaps it's better to house it as it sees fit. That is if you believe you have a soul.

There's more to living than merely surviving, existing. There's more to happiness than the letters which comprise the word. There's always more to something than just the sum of its parts. That is if you believe you have a soul.

I have a soul. I've felt it in orgasmic moments of passion and erotic moments of bliss. I've heard it speak softly to me in the night as I lay on my side of the bed, the other occupied by a human form, and filled with the soul of a ghost which doesn't haunt me but rather comprises that which I long for. Not because I cannot live without it, but because I've lived it already, long ago, and desperately want it back. I am living in the now because that's all I'm allowed. Everything is temporary and while I know that... I don't relish it like I once did. I want to go beyond keeping it to myself.

Have I been selfish for far to long to learn how to live with what it looks that I cannot have? Am I beyond ever learning how to accept those things I cannot change? Certainly not. Sometimes in the night, I curl up in the laughter of love and in those moments, I can still see so clearly. A moment within a moment. Is that possible? Am i insane? To be touched by the sound of laughter in this way goes beyond any physical contact. To feel golden embers of splattered life transcending the physical and conquering the metaphysical to a point of joy. These moments are what life is made of.

For a moment I think I wouldn't change a thing. Gleaning from a stream of consciousness, I realized that dandelions are yellow. And, it's the yellow of friendship whose tune fills my mind and vibrates out through my smile. Can there be hope in the tattered ruins of a tortured empire? Nietzsche would say hope in reality is the worse of all evils because it prolongs the torment of man. Maybe he is right. Or maybe the reality is that the empire isn't so tattered. Maybe the reality is that there is hope. Is hope in hope a bad thing? A good thing? Shall we get beyond good and evil? Is indifference the best of all states because one is simply beyond?

No talk of indifference today. I am not indifferent. I care not to be indifferent with such matters of the heart. Because you can starve a body and you can starve a soul and you can starve a heart, but in the end the fate is far worse than not having hope. Or having hope if you have nothing with which to at least choose to have or to have not. I ask again do we have a soul? Is it a part of us, an extension of us, is it us? Is it whole? Are there soul mates and body mates? Do some people choose their physical mate and never get beyond the mundane while some pick their soul mate and transcend it all? Do some people have a soul mate and a wholly separate body mate?

I have a soul. I have hope. The truth is I know. What did i say about the truth? What did Nietzsche say about hope? What does strangelove say? Feel. Being numb only ends in a whole lot of pain. There's more to life than floating through...but one can truly float when one truly lives.