Do You Have the Time

Jetlag. Everyone knows what it means but only those of us in it can commiserate. I'm back from the Islands and it occurred to me had I flown the same distance east instead of west I could have landed in Prague in the future instead of Honolulu in the past. Now I sit in Boston in my present wondering what time it is. For the first time in my adult life I actually understand and appreciate the lyric, "Does anybody really know what time it is?" Not that I haven't traveled plenty of places before...but those places didn't have a tiki bar next to a beach and a moon that will tap you on the shoulder to let you know night just fell. For some reason, time sorta stops in Hawaii. Could be the traffic, poised at every light like surfers awaiting the next big wave. Could be the locals, encouraging your next cocktail with an ear to ear grin and eyes that say, hey, you're not anywhere near a continent anymore. You may not make it back... It's a couple of days later (I think) since my last stroll on the sands of Waikiki, but it feels like ages already. It's amazing how you get back to doing what you're mind is used to before you're body's remotely ready. And of course, I try to talk my body back into the 9 to 5 on the east side, the 11:00 p.m. bedtime, but then my stomach argues, hey I should be enjoying those fabulous chicken wings and a jack and diet about now. No one else is up at 2:00 a.m. to agree. The fridge, full of vegetables, salsa and one lone beer, is not cooperating. Count Chocula doesn't help, but it was worth the try. I don't know how long it really takes to get back to your old self and not feel like that guy from Quantum Leap. I mean, I'm here, back where I belong, but I still feel like I just appeared, my hair's mussed up and I'm holding two pineapples for no apparent reason. I wish I would just stop calculating six hours back every time I look at the clock to justify whatever I'm feeling at the moment. But it's in my blood, I think. I used to be one of those people who would set my clock 10 minutes fast so when the alarm went off in the morning I would actually wake up ahead of the game. My alarm clock was a softball with a 9 minute snooze. When it went off, I'd throw it against the wall to activate the snooze. 9 minutes later it would go off again, but of course, I was still a minute ahead plus the other 10 minutes...snooze again, and well, you can see why I never really know what time it is regardless of wherever the hell I am. And I have a nasty habit of throwing hotel room alarm clocks against the wall. The good news is, this weekend is fall back. While I routinely admit Halloween is my favorite holiday, secretly it's because it lands around the weekend we all fall back. Fall back in time. Gain an hour. I love gaining that hour!! I don't change the clocks till later in the day so I can look at them and go, hey, it's actually only 2:30, not 3:30! I tell other people, too. Strangers in line. They ask me what time it is and I say, "3:30 on my watch, but guess what?! It's really only 2:30! Isn't that awesome?!!" And then I put down the pineapples and straighten my hair a little. I love doing the backward math that gives you more time in your day. I'm always looking for more time. Maybe that's why jetlag plagues me longer than most. I think of the time I had as time I still have. Now that I'm in two places mentally, why sleep? What's wrong with 6 meals a day? And I ain't lyin' when I belly up to the bar and say, hey, it's 5 o'clock somewhere...flying first class across four time zones taught me that. I guess I'll take jetlag if it means your nuts are warm, you can watch four movies in a row and no one but the flight attendant knows what a lush you really are. What are the odds she'll be on your next leap anyway?

Stairway to Heaven

Today I climbed Diamond Head. Diamond Head is the crater and peak of an old volcano on Oahu that blew up a long time ago and now shows zero signs of aggression. It’s one of those rounded bumps on the coastline covered in a fur of vegetation and hundreds of tiny doves. I thought the doves were dirt until I noticed movement and the movement is the constant nodding of their little heads as they peck their way through the groundcover. They don’t even look up to say hi. And apparently they have no fear of awakening the beast. I have been gunning to hike Diamondhead because Diamondhead is one of the few words here I’ve been able to pronounce with confidence since touching down four days ago. It is truly a gem among words stuffed with too many K’s and double A’s randomly punctuated with apostrophes. This giant crater has returned the inner socialite in me. Now that I’ve been to the top and back, it’s opened up a whole new world of conversation with any person within earshot no matter what their native tongue – Hawai’ian citizens, Japanese dignitaries, surfer dudes. It makes no difference. As soon as I rattle off a few “Diamondheads” in my crazy Boston plus Midwestern English, heads turn and start nodding. “Oh, she has been to Diamond Head!” And immediately after, “Did you go all the way to the top?” Which is a silly question, really. I don’t know anyone who would have the balls to say, “No, I turned back.” Old Hawai’ian couples climb this thing in flip flops. I saw a toddler in crocs. Mothers routinely summit wearing twins. Granted, it’s a mile hike that involves several steep staircases (which led me to ponder if staircases are indigenous to the volcanic landscape) that are comprised of 272 steps in total (yes, I counted. I am a nerd. But I was not the only genius on the mountain that day. A father and young son passed me going up as I came down and I overheard the dad say to his befuddled son, “And that’s why they call it the Dewey Decimal system.” The boy said nothing. I suspect he was just trying to put one foot in front of the other, plotting to push his father over the edge at the next lookout point.) The staircases are preceded by a steady upward climb on a narrow rocky path that takes about 20 minutes (longer if your Dad is describing a library). Once you hit the first set of stairs, you are no longer looking up. You don’t really care about looking at anything other than the next step in front of you. The first 100 steps are followed by a very dark, very long narrow tunnel that punches you through the wall of the crater and guess what? When you finally see daylight, more stairs! Immediately! Up up up! When will this nazi stairmaster nightmare end?! Even at elevation 755.566 feet, there were still two more dark spiral staircases to master (are we going inside a rocket ship??) and a rickety metal staircase of roughly 53 steps that led everyone to the point surrounded by endless blue at which they could finally exhale, “We made it!!!” Hours later, over cocktails, one of my trail mates would remark, “Can you believe we went up 755,566 feet today?!” It was hard to correct her, considering the journey certainly felt like that. She looked at me funny when I told her planes typically fly around 35,000 feet so it’s a wonder we didn’t slam into Diamond Head on the way in. Now I think she’s nervous about getting out of here. But, I digress. I should tell you about the payoff. You exit the last spiral staircase into a small cave where a guy in a Hawai’ian shirt or a Hawai’ian guy in a shirt sits behind a 6’ table with pamphlets on it. He gives you a minute to collect yourself, assuming the position of those around you: grabbing your knees, gasping for air, mumbling Mahalo God it’s over. Then he politely suggests you make a donation. I would have, except I saw this sliver of blue up ahead and I was drawn to it. Two steps up and you literally crawl under an overhanging rock and voila! You are at last on top of old non-smokey. Almost. Around another bend there’s the final staircase and that takes you to the best view of all. Miles of ocean so clean and clear you can see the reef underneath. It churns and foams into whitecaps that stretch in every direction. Surely that’s a whale! Surely those are dolphins! But maybe they’re just rocks. It doesn’t matter. Turn left and there’s the big city. Buildings crowd the coastline. Palm trees line the streets. It’s spectacular. The breeze is soothing. The air is like a cold beer. And all you have to do now is look. And appreciate. The trek down after that was easy.

Am I Really Here?

The good news is the plane found Hawaii. Since we landed in the dark, it could have been Kansas for all I knew, but I was so happy to have touched down safely I didn't question it. As soon as I set foot inside the airport though, it was pretty evident Don Ho had been here. Despite the sorry lack of coconut tatas and swooshy grass skirts (I guess the late shift couldn't wait for us any longer), there were plenty of other clues. The letter K was everywhere. Random apostrophes appeared in heavily syllabled words on sign after sign. Tiny bubbles floated all around. The decor was distinctly 70's and prior. There was an unspoken question in the air: "Why update? You'll come anyway." And the guy who I let go before me to get off the plane went from "Thank you" to me to "Mahalo" to the pilot in less than 2 seconds. He was from Indiana. I know this because he was very tall and pale and probably played basketball in high school. Driving to the hotel I was still skeptical it might all be a hoax until I saw Likelike Highway and the signs for Waikiki. And of course, I am staying in the Pink Palace of the Pacific. Hours (days) later, I sit in my room overlooking waves bullying surfers to the shore over and over and I think, holy crap. I'm really here. All these years I have imagined Hawaii an impossible adventure - mostly because a honeymoon seemed unlikely and the actual airplane ride just as ridiculous an idea (both threatening a rather lengthy plunge), but here I sit. In the middle of the freakin Pacific with no other land mass of consequence for thousands of miles. I am a mere speck on a mere speck. Merer! I did not fully comprehend how mere until I googled Boston to Honolulu. Apparently, you take a couple of major highways across the northern part of the continental U.S. through Montana and such and you get to the Pacific coast where you turn left and then KAYAK south for 2,671 miles (or something like that). Then you turn right on Franklin Hwy. This will take 16 days. I assume that's because you have found one of those high speed ferries out of Mackinaw to tow you. For once, I'm relieved to have flown. Bird strikes have delayed others in our party from arriving, so I'm even more relieved to have flown when the birds were wreaking havoc at some other airport. I've been here for a morning and an afternoon and I've already visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Intense. Intense in the sense that so many lost their lives so many years ago and yet when you're standing there, you feel like it was just yesterday. They show an amazing documentary with actual footage and a very good retelling of the events that took place that fateful day in December 1941. It's so good when the Arizona explodes you actually jump out of your seat a bit and I honestly was a little terrified it was happening for real. I can't imagine living in that time when one day everything seemed so peaceful and the next, well, instant hell. Walking through the memorial, feeling the rush of the breeze over the water, staring out at the harbor and trying to understand the meaning behind such sudden and lasting destruction was unsettling. I wish I knew how moments like that really sit with the person on the other side. The one who made the call to attack. The one who thought this would be a good thing in the end. All it did was lead to more lives lost and more what might have been's. The power to change the future is in any and every one of us, I suppose. Unfortunately, some are more comfortable on a bigger stage. If you have the opportunity and can stomach the flight (if I can, you can) to visit this state so many call "paradise," take the 75-minute tour of Pearl Harbor. I'm not being flip when I say the $3 hotdog is outstanding - it is truly a nice bonus with a little catsup and a bag of corn chips (bring an extra $2 for the vending machine soda). But the lesson, the standing there and seeing it for yourself, is far more worthwhile. I learned I may be a speck, but every life has meaning. Every life gives something to the next. Consequently, you should do everything you can to get the most out of yours. So enough sitting...I'm off to smile at some people on the beach.

Hawaii-atus

I’m supposed to talk about ideal co-stars, topic #41. I’ve been supposed to talk about it for several weeks actually. I completely blew off September. I’ve talked myself into the fact that I did it on purpose. I refuse to write in September, I’ve said on many occasions. Actions speak louder than words, of course, so I had to force myself to stay away from blogging during month number 9. How that lead to nearly abandoning October I’ll never know, other than generally an object at rest tends to stay at rest. In an ongoing effort to become an object in motion that stays in motion, I will now vow to blog daily for the next week. I can make this promise because I am doing what all good series do when they have writers’ block and have no idea what to do with the characters anymore: send them to Hawaii. I am the Brady Bunch for the next seven days. I am sitting in LAX as I write this anticipating touchdown in Honolulu at some ungodly east coast hour that is entirely acceptable in the middle of nowhere. Indeed when I land I expect hot chicks wearing tastefully placed coconuts and rustling grass skirts to greet me with trademark grins and colorful flower strings. They will respectfully pause when I fall to the ground and smooch it because I can’t believe the plane actually found land in the midst of all that blue. I might even kiss the pilots if the door is unlocked and one of them is a woman. I never dreamt I would be going to Hawaii. It has always been a crazy faraway place of volcanic mystery in my mind that makes for great scenery but can’t possibly be real. I mean, how did they find it? And how do they keep finding it? It’s like the only thing on that side of the globe. If you look at a map, honestly, it’s a few little dots and thousands of miles of a really pretty blue color that represents certain death. Boarding the plane, I’m sure I will be slightly comforted by the couple from Ohio in matching Hawaiian shirts. Surely they got those the first time they went and now here they are going again! They trust this craft. They’ve been there and back in a tin can with wings and by golly, it’s perfectly sane to climb aboard with a couple hundred other souls, sit facing the same way and breathe the same stale air for several hours into nothingness. I know it’s a real place, but my only real exposure to this exotic land has been my parents’ honeymoon photos from the mid 60’s and that 5-day stretch when the Brady’s went on vacation and Bobby found the tiki statue. After that, I was petrified of tarantulas crawling the length of me during sleep and I never hung any sort of artwork above my bed. I would also leave a trail of bread crumbs wherever I go. Or Doritoes. Or small sandwiches. The Hawaiian episodes taught me that you can’t mess with the Island gods or you will end up getting kidnapped by Vincent Price. It is only because he passed that I’m somewhat encouraged I won’t fall victim to a similar fate. Can’t speak for his ghost, however, which given the option would probably roam 87 and balmy day in and day out. Well, they called for us….boarding soon. Kiss the kids. I love you all.

Walking on Air

Well, well, well. It is nearly September and only now am I arriving at topic #40. I need to make a serious run this fall to complete all 100 subjects by Dec 31, midnight. What have I been doing all summer? It's dusty in here. There's a cobweb! Two!!! Damn spiders. The least they could do is write a little instead of spinning all that nonsense. I wish I could say I've been too busy to write. To some degree, I s'pose I have. But my niece McKenna might argue in a court of law I had plenty of time to rack up thousands of Webkinz bucks so she could buy the state of California for her pet canary. That took a few hours of idly playing stacked solitaire while sipping a cocktail and "winding down" as I call it. I am very stressed out, people. I spend hours a day on a computer multi-tasking with a variety of applications, completing project after project so the first thing I want to do when I'm done with that is get right back on the horse and mouse click my way through 537 hands of easy peasy solitaire for school kids. It's relaxing. I wish the coins were real. I'm nearly out of Jack. The point of this whole thing is today's topic, which is: why I want one of those Mac Airbooks or Air MacBooks or that impossibly thin laptop with the Apple on it that has zero capability but looks absolutely stunning on your lap in a coffee shop accessing stocks. I do not drink coffee. I have no stocks. More than likely I would be drinking a Lemon Lime G2 (shout out, Roni!) and accessing on-line roulette, but whatever the case, how cool would that be?? I have been lugging around this Toshiba Satellite laptop (named, I presume, for the object most like it in weight) for over 4 years and every time I see someone with an Air I feel fat. It doesn't matter how much I work out, how much I starve myself, how much shorter I cut my hair...one look at that Mac and I'm thinking Lipo. I would dearly love to send my Toshiba into orbit and approach one of those pastel t-shirted fellas in the nearest Mac store and get hooked up. I would even bring my own manila envelope carrying case. Having read all the reviews, I'm well aware it would be a colossal mistake technology-wise to invest in something incapable of staying on for more than 7 minutes because an 8-minute battery weighs too much, BUT I would never have to use the word schlepp again. Even though I've discovered the Air has no CD drive, I would act surprised about that after buying it and then remark again how thin it looks. And, I would forgive the inaccessability of its ports. So what if it's hard to plug in a flash drive or some silly cable if you want to sit at a table? Move!! Get on a flight. Who the hell's gonna stare at you at the library anyway??? You're destined for Hollywood with an Air under your arm. I think if I had the Air I'd write more. I would write more and e-mail my files to my big Mac for storage so's not to bog my Air down. I would be a stealth writer. Mobile. Flexible. I could write outside. In the park. On a bench. Surrounded by life. Thoughts would pour out of me for 7 solid minutes. Then I could move inside, near an outlet, meet other Mac Air people who also need an outlet. I could bring a surge protector. I could be popular!! Even as I write this I feel clunky, awkward and alone. I can't think of a single moment when anyone has asked me about my Toshiba. It still has XP. The screen is pretty big. The battery weighs more than a toddler. I pulled it out on an airplane once and the woman next to me frowned. Frowned and shifted to the farthest corner of her middle seat. All the babies started crying again. All the babies. Embarrassed, I mumbled something about needing to re-pack my bag and put it away. Had that been the Mac Air....well, I don't have to tell you it's the difference between getting a highlight and stretching those roots for another month. My laptop has been good to me, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it's big and it's a little slow, but I don't want to abandon it. I just need a break. I need to see other laptops. I'm sure once I take the Mac Air out on the town I'll realize how much better I have it at home. It's a moment of weakness - form over function. It's hard not to give in. So I will dangle it like a carrot... write your SECOND novel on the Mac Air... by then it will likely have been reduced to a microchip shot into my brain, adding a mere .00000012 ounces to my overall bodyweight and requiring nothing more than a passing thought to piss out an entire work of art. Ah, Macintosh, I salute thee.

Write Stuff

I wonder if we should stop telling kids they can be anything they want to be. It's a nice sentiment, but 40 years later I am still not a novelist. I am everything but a novelist. Except I'm not a very good swimmer, I can't fly a helicopter and the officer who pulled me over did not fully understand my objective of someday breaking the sound barrier as my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Gusky confirmed I one day would. On the flip side, I can build a website, I know a lot about golf and I make a mean cheese tray. Oddly, none of those things came up when I was in kindergarten. All fantasies aside, I have always wanted to be a writer. It's the one constant in a long list of professions I once aspired to and a host of others I actually engaged in. If I dreamt of being an astronaut, I was writing in space. If I imagined myself playing major league baseball (not just during the war), I was revealing my secret life of 'roids and whiskey in a stirring autobiography. If I ever made it into the ballet, well, hilarity ensues when I put pen to paper in a tell-all about how I duped the folks at the International School of Ballet (or "bal - lay" as I pronounce it per Billy Elliot). To finally write a book of consequence would be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to get something organized, lengthy and complete on paper. In 5th grade, I showed signs of actually getting the job done when I penned (literally) "Rescue from Devil Shark Island." It was pages and pages and pages of my handwriting in blue ink. I illustrated the cover myself. I think it was about getting rescued from Devil Shark Island. At age 10, living in south central lower Michigan, you can imagine how many shark attacks I had endured. I lived in constant fear of shark attacks. I avoided the lakes. I skimmed the pool profusely before entering, always mindful of the deep end. I checked the filter often. I was fascinated by the everpresent possiblity that I could actually be attacked and eaten alive by a shark. As a kid, I poured my heart out about it in one of my best works of fiction to date. Since then, I have written an awful lot of crap about stuff I don't know and mildly gotten away with it. What I haven't done is written much about what I've actually done. "Write what you know" is what they always say to writers struggling with that first novel. Did I mention I wanted this to be a lengthy book? It would be a little less than stellar to put what I know in a book. I know how to change a tire. I know how to make a sandwich. I know how to mix a cocktail. I know how to play softball. I know when I have "my days" (as my Oma used to call that time of the month) I will cry at some point during SportsCenter. I know how to run a golf tournament. I know how to use Word and Excel and Powerpoint. I know how to edit videos. I know how to tell time. I am a good texter. The jobs I've actually held reveal little more about what I know: newspaper carrier, pizza delivery person, teacher, coach, training video producer, director of communications and training, graphic designer, web designer, I.T. manager, dancer (still paying attention?!), entrepreneur, average speller, stand-up comedian, tournament director. In recent years, I would say the bulk of my written work can be found in e-mails littered across cyberspace. I've posted content to a number of websites. My thoughts are trapped in a few cell phones here and there, some discarded for the next best thing in technology. But there's no cohesion. There's no focus. There's no plot. There might be some characters, but what are they doing? How do I write a book about a gal growing up in the midwest who has a nice family and likes volleyball? One time, in college, she delivered pizzas. Now she is a webmaster. The end. BOR-ing. I think if they're gonna tell you from day one you can be anything you wanna be (or all you can be and then some), they should also can the "write what you know" shit. The two don't jive. My new advice to myself so I can finally be a novelist is: be what you are and write what you wanna be. You can use it, too.

Some Assembly Required

I like putting things together. Not just 2 and 2, but actual things. Like furniture from Ikea. It's packed up so nice in the box, complete with instructions and a special tool that will only work for that project. Yet I always save the tool after construction, "just in case..." You never know when a friend will purchase the exact same giant wall unit, somehow misplace the tool and then call you for help. Sometimes the tool can also be used to pry open a paint can or scratch a spot on your back you can't quite reach. It doesn't say that in the instructions, but I tend to think outside the box. Consequently, I have a drawer full of mini metal wrenches, allen keys, glue bottles, leftover dowels and uniquely Swedish screwdrivers that could double as shoehorns. I'm amazed at how Ikea gets all the parts of a complete set of patio furniture into a flat box that easily slips into the back seat of a Corolla. I enjoy looking at the display samples of massive entertainment centers and then criss-crossing my way through the store, past all the tempting signs for the meatball special, to the warehouse bin where the incredibly small box of parts sits, waiting. It's hard to imagine what's in that box will eventually pop up into a shiny new shelving unit that will easily hold all your crap and then some plus a big flat screen TV, but once you put it together, voila! And the leftover box is just right for Maverick's temporary amusement, easily recycled Monday morning. I have assembled a lot of furniture in my time. I've pieced together nightstands, dressers, bookshelves, shoe organizers, wood beds, wrought iron beds, entertainment centers, kitchen tables, benches, desks, decorative carts, armoires and utility cabinets. My grandpa could build all that stuff from scratch with real tools, but it makes me feel a little capable that I can manage building those things on my own with nothing more than a screwdriver, and not always the right one. Why is it when you need a Phillips you can only find the flathead and when you need a flathead you can only find a butter knife? I'll admit I sometimes skip ahead in the instructions, especially if there are more than two steps written out under a diagram. I just look at the next picture. I don't want to read 14 paragraphs of detail. You can usually tell from the drawings where it's all headed. But I will also go back and re-read more closely when my handywork looks nothing like the picture so far. More than a few times, I've had to take something apart after finishing it because the wrong side of the board is facing out. I am also somewhat challenged by hinges and swivels. Anything requiring sensitive adjustment really depends on how much I've had to eat prior to starting the project. I have to be careful because I'm forever torn between finishing what I've started and taking a break. Breaks are dangerous. They involve a good sandwich, maybe some chips, a soda or two, what's on TV, I could use a nap...I don't necessarily want to get back to it. This means powering through to completion even when I'm not at my sharpest. Hence, doors that are a titch off when closed and drawers whose bottoms slip out and bow under the weight of their contents. Acceptable when you're contemplating a BLT. Not so hot when you're proudly touring your place and someone says, oh, is one side of that shelf higher than the other? Well no wonder all those candles are in the corner! Sometimes I'm really in the mood to put something together. Like the time my mom decided to sell our bunk beds. They were in the basement, so I took them apart, carried them upstairs and reassembled them in the garage for the sale. Sometimes I'm called upon in the darkest hour to whip pieces into place. One year my brother got a bike for Christmas. It came in a box, wheels and tubes, frame, seat, handlebars all in disarray, and I was in the basement till after midnight cranking it whole. Sometimes, admittedly, I dread a project in a box. One word: mini-blinds. A 4" x 4" square of instructions in 4 pt. Arial with a lone diagram that looks more like a football play is not enough. I can see why some people resort to newspaper or two pushpins and a towel for window treatments. For the most part, I'm game for anything that works like Legos. I loved them as a kid, but it's a little weird to still ask for them for Christmas. Since no one has taken me up on it in 30 years, I live vicariously through my nephew, Aidan. And I have to say, I was never one for dollhouses, but boy did I miss out. I put one of those babies together for my niece this past Christmas and by the time I snapped the roof into place I was thinking, I'm a girl. It would be all right to have one of these in my house, right? While we were arranging the little furniture (which, sadly, came assembled) on the various floors and making up soap operas, I was thinking, seriously, I could put one up in the loft and my nieces can play with it when they come over! Never mind they're 777 miles away and don't exactly drop by on random evenings looking for toys...but hey, "just in case." Air quotes make it okay to build more than one, right?

I've Got the Bejesus in Me

Horror movies scare the bejesus out of me. Not exactly sure how the bejesus got in me, but I can tell you it comes flying out at the opening credits, especially if the words are in white typewriter font, really small on a totally black screen with no music. All it has to say is something like "The Blooding of Duncan McGee" and I'm frightened at the mere prospect of Duncan's demise. The first scene can be Duncan bagging groceries and I'm already wondering if the tomatoes are actually killer tomatoes...my cursed imagination far outshines my penchant for logic. Most people probably find horror movies silly and predictable, but I am the one who is always startled by the crazy knife-wielding dude hiding in the closet at the log cabin on the lake. I hate that he wears a mask. I hate that his knife is grossly over-sized. I hate that he grunts like a tennis player with every strike. I think he is in my closet. Or under my bed. Or standing at the back door just after I flip off the light for the night. Movies like Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween III through Halloween XXVII have left a mark on brain for all eternity even though I only saw the first part of the first one 30 years ago. I only have to hear that "alternate-between-the-same-two notes-on-the-piano plunky theme song" to freeze in my tracks and wonder if Mike is behind me. His weird rubbery hands clutching a knife (not un-like the biggest one we have in our drawer that I sometimes chop lettuce with) and his pale face devoid of expression like the alter ego of one of those blue man group fellas. I think I was 11 when I saw what I saw of Halloween The Movie. All I remember now is that I had to sleep by the stairs at a slumber party right after and I didn't really care that they put my training bra in the freezer because I was actually alive the next morning to find out. I made the mistake of watching Nightmare on Elm Street way back when and still few evenings go by that I don't picture myself being filleted by Freddy's wackadoo claws just before falling asleep. I try to push my brain instead to Edward Scissorhands making a bunny out of a boxwood so that I can transition out of hell, but I can't shake the feeling that I will be sucked inside my mattress and spewed out seconds later in liquid form. I don't know who thinks of this shit or whether they realize the sleepless nights they've caused me. They'd probably be proud of it. Just thinking about writing on this subject has influenced my dreams the past few days. Last night I was trapped in a woodshed for a while that was lit in a greenish hue like someone was watching me with nightgoggles. I must have had them on too cuz I could see all the pitchforks pretty good. Reminded me of that scene in Silence of the Lambs where Jody Foster follows the bad guy into his basement. I don't even follow my cat into my basement and I'm fairly certain there isn't a well down there with severed fingertips at the bottom. I mean, I haven't looked in every corner. One of the lights burned out recently. I can't be totally sure. I didn't even go through a "phase" with horror movies - you know, where you sort of like them and like grossing other people out by sharing what you saw. I was never curious or even the least bit appreciative of horror as an art form. I don't know if it's really because I'm somehow, impractically, afraid to die under similar circumstances or if my mind just can't wrap itself around the act of creating scene after scene of gore, loosely tied together as boy meets girl, boy sexes up girl, girl needs to use the outhouse, girl never comes back, boy goes after girl, boy never comes back, best friend shows up at the pond, has to use outhouse, sees what's left of boy and girl, best friend never comes back, best friend's girlfriend shows up at the pond, has to use outhouse... if something can be learned from this it's hold your pee. Especially when it's dark out and you are at the pond. I wish I was one of those people who could actually go to the movie even though I'm frightened by it. Like I could watch it through my hands or something. Or look away when it's really scary and have someone tell me what's going on. At least then I could say I saw it when someone brings it up at a party. It's the same way I feel about Cedar Point and Six Flags and roller coasters that have to have a flashing light on top of the first hill so airplanes won't hit them. I wish I could just get in line like everyone else, casually lower the bar when I'm in the front car and take the next two minutes to see how much bejesus I really have in me. Because I don't watch horror flicks anymore, can't even bring myself to flip through a scary novel (abandoned The Shining half way through when I was 19 and my parents had casually moved my room to the basement) and I don't have the balls to hop the Millenium or the Superman or the mine ride at Disney for that matter, I have no idea how scared I really could be. I just assume I will be scared shitless and that's a mess I don't want to clean up. Not when the toddler next to me, smiling ear to ear, is wearing a diaper yet to be soiled. Was he even tall enough to get on?!

The IQ of the Beholder

What is considered a decent IQ? I think 200 is genius or something, so probably 100 would be average. Or half a genius. Depending on how you look at it. I supposed if I had a high IQ, I would know how to look at it. Truth is, I do have a high IQ but it has gotten me absolutely nowhere so far. In grade school, it was sort of important. It carried some weight. Not with other kids, of course. Unless you were looking to whoop some ass or get yours whooped. "She has the highest number...let's get her!!" And then I made everyone tackle Maureen Podlewski. I'm kidding. No one tackled Maureen. She punched me once. I was not going to mess with her no matter how high her number was. I think adults were way more into IQ's back then. Adults and Maureen. They would get all atwitter about a kid scoring higher than 160 but what did it really mean? Somewhere along the line I'd heard those tests were based on a curve, so big deal. You're smarter than the rest of us hanging out closer to the top of the bell. Good luck with that. Straight to Jeopardy! Although Jeopardy is way harder than an IQ test (unless you yell your answers really loud at the TV in a roomful of people and "sound" right all the time). If you've ever taken an IQ test, you probably know that it's just a lot of patterns and numbers and funny math. And dare I say, the more often you take the test, the "smarter" you get. You can take one on the internet right now and score a 12. Go ahead, take it again... I bet you get a 146. Then enter your cell phone for some really great offers! Things like free ballroom dance lessons and a commercial airline ticket to anywhere in the continental U.S. It's sort of sad, what's happened to the IQ, or "intelligence quotient" as we 146-ers like to call it. It's gone the way of the dodo (irony...) and vanished as a reliable measurement of one's thinker. I excel at patterns and funny math, but rarely am I challenged in real life to fill in the missing number from a series of numbers. Or count the number of boxes within a diagram. Or determine which shape comes next in a row of shapes that have been progressively altered. It's nice to get the answers right, but I still can't dial my parents' full phone number from memory, neatly pack a suitcase or hang a picture without a level. I love puzzles, I really do. Sudoku is singularly responsible for settling my nerves in any seat on an airplane. Added bonus: no one talks to me. (Unfortunate shortcoming: it does not stop babies from crying). As a kid, I read the book on how to solve Rubik's cube and then proceeded to solve every Rubik's cube in Meijer's on the weekends as my mom shopped for groceries. I enjoy colors and shapes and numbers and patterns and how everything fits together, but I still wash reds with whites, end up with pinks and throw things in the dryer that don't belong. It's really great that I can read assembly instructions and diagrams better than most (thanks to years with Legos), but I have a drawer full of extra screws, plastic nubs, tiny dowels and nuts (no bolts) that much of my furniture survives without. I'm skeptical about my IQ. If the number is high, I don't think it means you're smart. I think it means you did a good job answering some brain teasers that maybe other people could give two shits about. I like that I'm good at little challenges, tricky questions, story problems. But I hate that I have no idea how to take apart a car and put it back together again. It bugs me that I don't know much about Mars. And I could kick myself for not paying more attention during the botany unit in school. I am killing yet another beautiful plant as I sit here. It's on my window sill. The Sun Star. I think it's South African. Knowing that most South Africans visiting America do not drop dead upon arrival due to drastic climate changes, I'm thinking the demise of this plant is surely my fault. My IQ is no help with how often to water this thing. I started out giving it as much as I would need, but then again, I pee. I thought I would get smarter with age. It would seem smarts are directly related to effort at this point. If I want to be more intelligent, my pursuits must shift from idly playing games on my niece's Webkins account (Cash Cow is awesome because it's all about colors and patterns!!) to actually reading something informative. Actually retaining that information is another story, but I'm not going to put down my cocktail to pick up a book. I've got two good hands for a reason. I'm capable (and smart) enough to sip and absorb at the same time. I might even let you know what I find out...

When I Lay Dying...

I haven't decided yet. I'm supposed to blog about cremation vs. burial. Do I come up with uplifting topics or what?! I guess now that I'm on the other side of 40 I should start weighing these options a little more heavily. I do this believing that they are the only options for my "remains" (I put "remains" in "quotes" because they are hypothetical and when spoken, the word is also "accented" with the right and left-handed two-fingered "air quote" gesture.) I know I could come up with better ways to dispose of me than a coffin or a match, but it just isn't practical. Why bother others with it? I mean who would want to hear after my passing that I want to be shot into space? Or strapped to a jetski and released into the waves toward Hawaii? I have no plans to go to Hawaii while living, but hey, once I'm dead I might even take that flight. Forget the jetski, put me in 14B next to a crying baby. What do I care? Make me hold the baby. I won't know the difference. What if I wanted to be frozen? But not in a lab, more like somewhere in Alaska. Put me on ice, right along one of those cruise lines so at certain times of the year, I can be seen with binoculars. Embed me in a sort of clear ice chamber, if you will, so I can see out and you can see in. Go ahead, have a whole conversation right in front of me about how bazaar it is. I don't care. I can't hear you. It seems so defeatist to choose immediately between ashes and soil. Can't I be seen just a little while longer even if I can't see back? Cremation seems the more practical choice. I am no nonsense. I don't want to be a burden. Reduce me to fluff and seal me in a small pot. The pot can be decorative. I can sit on a mantle for a while. I can remind others of the good times. Until the pot is deemed worth something. Then I am accidentally sold in a yard sale by the neighbor's kid. This is all because rather than honor my wishes of having my ashes spread atop Mount Washington (they must be hiked up, not driven...I can be a bit of an ass), everyone decided to keep me around a little longer. Now who knows where I'll end up. So maybe going six feet under is better. Put me in a box. Say your good-byes. Bury me and mark the spot with a rock. You can always come back and say hi. I'm not going anywhere. The thought of that makes me sweat a little. I commiserate with people who say they don't want to be buried because they are claustrophobic, but at the same time, I like to believe when dead I won't notice. I am annoyed to no end by people who refuse burial because they fear becoming "worm food." So annoyed I have once again employed the use of air quotes. Truth is, some of those coffins look pretty cozy. I see all that satin-y lining. Soft pillows. A nap with the lid open can't be that bad. It's when they close the lid I panic. Kind of like how I panic at the thought of being conveyor belted into the oven. This is what makes the decision so hard. I don't really know what will happen when my cold feet hit the flames or when the lid closes on my quiet frame. I think the point is to never know. Not that I won't ever die, but that being dead means you are not aware. Everyone else is, but not you. Given that, I should take a poll. What's easiest? Ashes or a me-sized box? Would you rather have me on your mantle (rotate among family and friends seasonally) or in the ground (you come to me, at your convenience)? I'm always impressed by others who know without question they want to be cremated. Equally so by those who unwaveringly say "I want to be buried." The gift of compromise is my burden...I suppose I wouldn't mind being buried so much if I were just a pile of ash. Dig a small hole in the backyard and put what's left of me in it. So, to the flames first! And then to the earth to think about what I've done.

Back to School

When you're in school, maybe you don't think it's so cool, but looking back on it now I really miss it. I miss having a desktop that opened by lifting, not double-clicking. I miss doing assignments on that desk, trying to find a smooth spot to write on. I miss the little one-inch tray along the front of the inside where I'd put my pencils and pens and a crayon or two, maybe a found penny or random paperclip. Sometimes even a little stash of cinnamon toothpicks carefully packaged in saran wrap until they were deemed contraband and confiscated by a frowning teacher's aid. Too hot for us kids, I guess. I miss marbles. I used to have a shit ton of marbles. I didn't call them that then. But I'm older now and the way I describe quantities has changed significantly. Not to mention substantially. I could also use butt load. But everybody knows a shit ton is more than a butt load, especially since I had a butt load of steelies alone. Steelies were silver marbles made out of what I presumed to be steel, but it could have been any combination of metals. All that mattered was they were heavier than your average marble and could crack a cat's eye or a boulder pretty easily in one shot. I kept all my marbles in a purple velvet bag with a yellow cord. This bag used to hold liquor. My grandma gave it to me. Or, I found it around the house. I have lost a shit ton of memory since those days. Probably due to my own purple bags of alcohol. But I do remember one thing: I was awesome at marbles. You might say, how convenient. You remember yourself being good at it, but what if you are just suppressing all the times you lost to Scottie or Maureen or that kid from the assembly about drugs who had hairy arms? Even though I've lost a lot of them since, I can guarantee you I had all the marbles then. And how you come by marbles, people, is through victory. When you hit someone else's marble, you take it. I hit a lot of marbles. And if I have to play the Susie Falaska card, I will. Susie Falaska was my best friend in grade school and I'm fairly certain we had detailed conversations and made notes of our marble conquests. That's another thing I miss about school. All those hours wiled away with so many friends on subjects ranging from who’s the best at bombardo to pumping the swings hard enough to lift the poles off the ground. I was out with my friends in the present the other night and Leslie said something about an adult kickball league. I was immediately interested. I have been trying desperately to remember the last play I ever made in kickball but I know I never will because hey, who knew at the time it would be my last? Was it a spectacular catch of a smash line drive? Was it a diving stop and subsequent throw-out of some poor wimp caught between 2^nd and 3^rd? Or was it less than stellar…maybe I tripped over myself trying to kick one out of the park and instead dribbled it back to the pitcher for an easy out to end the game? How embarrassing. An opportunity to erase that one among total strangers who want the same level of redemption must be seized. Surely kickball on a Saturday afternoon beats four hours of chasing a much smaller, much harder, much more dimply white ball in and of the woods with sticks better suited for mole-whacking? Anything that reminds me of school gives me pause these days. I know there are lots of different schools, different ages, different phases in life when you’re actually in school, but when I say school I mean before junior high (when you get all pimply) and well before high school (when you feel oppressed by the man). I miss grade school. I really enjoyed the simplicity of that age. The appreciation for inventiveness, creativity and doing something no one else had ever done in quite that way. I remember starting a newsletter in 5^th grade. It was a one-pager that I ran off on the ditto machine in the principal’s office. The ink was very purple and so was I after every deadline. I’ll never forget the smell of that ink and my own thumbprints in the margins as I passed out the latest edition. I hand wrote all the articles in columns and drew cartoons for the pictures. I remember finishing my first (and last) novel that same year on that same ditto machine: “Devil Shark Island,” a PG-13 tale of an incredible escape from some very mean sharks. I remember coveting things out of GRIT Magazine, so much so that I became a salesperson of said magazine. I remember teaming up with classmates to write a commercial for a brand new toothpaste. We even sang a jingle. I remember doing a slide presentation on safari animals. I brought in my parents’ projector and everything. I was very into A/V and it makes me smile to think how far we’ve come just in my lifetime. If I’d had a laptop and Power Point as a kid…well, maybe I’d have become bored with it, too. My Dad recently showed me a picture I remember from way back when, before I think I was even in school, of me and my sister playing with our favorite toys. Hers was something Barbie, mine was called “Future Phone.” It said “Future Phone” really big in computer-y letters on the box. And of course, I’m on the phone. Calling the future. If I was talking to me, I wish I would have told myself to repeat everything that happens to me over and over again in my head so I will always remember it. Or, a wrong number might have been nice…I could still be there.

What the Meek Really Inherit

I've put off this topic long enough. It's time to meet it head-on with some hard-core musings. Subject #33 is "things passed down to me." Right away you're thinking, oh, inheritances! I wish. Where do we get off describing it as stuff handed DOWN anyway? That implies it came from above, and honestly, most of the stuff I've received has been a lateral move. Meaning the people aren't dead yet. The implication is they will die some day and you might as well take it now. The only thing (and by thing I mean a physical object) I've actually inherited so far is a desk, built by my grandfather and willed to me by my Uncle Ron. I believe he wanted me to have it, but at the same time, I remember agreeing to take it from the items available in his basement. It was sort of heavy and light pine. My grandpa hinged the top so you can actually remove it and fold it for easy transport. I sanded it and re-stained it a dark cherry, but it still has all the original hardware. I'm glad I have it because it reminds me of two people I loved dearly who are now on the other side. But it's hard to think of it as "passed down" considering it was brought up from a basement and taken further up into our loft (three flights). It's probably now closer to Ron than it is to me most days. I don't like to think about anybody dying, let alone what happens to their stuff afterwards. But my parents have been down-sizing a lot lately, even though I believe they are hundreds of years from passing. I don't know why they feel compelled to get rid of all their stuff now other than they're tired of staring at it or dusting it. For those reasons, I too might consider acting on my will while I'm still living. It's no fun to be willed something that doesn't exist anymore after the person passes. "Um, it says here you would have gotten the coin collection if he hadn't sold it on eBay because he didn't want to keep hanging onto it just for you until he died." If you hand stuff out while you're alive, you can see how much people appreciate it. My mom distributed her Christmas decorations cleverly at our last Christmas gathering. When I say last, I mean most recent. Not the last one forever and ever! But of course, the last one featuring my mom's Christmas decorations. She numbered them all with tags and then had an impromptu drawing. I drew numbers 3, 14 and 21. I got the wooden figurine ornaments, a small wreath and a stuffed snowman. I also voluntarily claimed three ceramic angels and a bubble blowing elephant. I'm sure I melted at the time and laid claim to a few more items that will emerge forevermore in my house at Christmas because I am too sentimental. I mean, I see a rubber Christmas tree with arms and legs and I just can't bear to let the little fella go. He matches the rubber reindeer on ice skates!! My mom is very practical. I imagined her thinking in her thick German accent, "Vee no longer need zees tings. Und aus! Macht schnell!"

I don't walk around expecting to inherit anything, really, but I am understandably surprised when stuff comes my way and I can actually call and thank the person. Maybe it's my German heritage. We don't like to keep stuff around too long. Just taking up space like that. Move it through! Give it to someone who can still use it. My aunts are over 70 and in recent years I have received a couple of treasures from them that have "me" written all over them. One is a giant blue vase that's almost as wide as it is tall that resembles a sea shell of sorts. This comes from Aunt Pat, my dear Godmother. The other is a t-shirt of a very fat expressionless cat that says "I Am Smiling." The t-shirt is framed. This comes from Aunt Gisela, from whom I may have inherited my sense of humor. I am content with these items and deeply appreciative. I find meaning in them and my sentimental side cringes when others upon first sight say, "Where the hell did you get that?!" I mean, hey, they're from my people for God's sake. Back off. I feel special. They thought of me! Never mind that weeks later, through the grapevine and a series of overheard remarks I learn that my sister once again scored the china. Aunt Gisela sent her china home with my parents to give to Tess. In the same car as my I Am Smiling framed t-shirt. My sister is hoarding china. Maybe through no fault of her own, but every time I turn around, whole sets of china are making their way to my sister either before death or after death or for all I know in someone's very last breath. "Please give my china....to.....Tessie....." Seconds later, "Please give....my fuzzy dice....to.....Susie..." Her basement has to be filled to the brim with china. She could have a dinner party for China. But I'm not complaining. At least I don't have to worry about giving it all away some day. If I were her I'd tag it all and hold a drawing next Thanksgiving...

The Chicken or The Egg

My recent trip to The Container Store was a revelation. Apparently, stuff made to hold other stuff is very popular. I wish I were more organized. People say I'm organized, but that's usually right after I've cleaned out my backpack at the airport and am able to quickly access a pen for the stranger in the seat next to me. If he'd been on the earlier leg of the trip and I didn't have a three-hour layover, the pen would have been covered in nacho cheese dorito dander and probably not functional. I think I have an organized mind. Like I know where stuff is in my brain and how to access it, even if some things are farther back on the shelf than others. But outwardly, when it comes to physical things I have and where they go, it's a bit of a crap shoot these days. Early in life, I was pretty good at having a place for everything and everything in its place. I was very particular about how things lined up on shelves and the color coordination of items in my closet. I used to carefully stack my Christmas presents as I received them, folding up the wrapping paper for possible re-use. I loved Legos. I would play Tetris for days at a time. I loved solving puzzles. All of these things suggest I enjoy order and the satisfaction of finding an exact fit for something loose. Let me just tell you how things have changed. My desk at work is a great example of my new "if I can't see it I won't remember it and it no longer exists" approach to organization. It is a clear sign I have crossed the 40 mark. I am actually afraid to file. That's why all of my files are stacked on my desk or on the floor to my right. I'm even more afraid to go through these files and eliminate what may no longer be needed. What if I still need it?! Like these handwritten notes from 2005 listing what I needed to do on Tuesday (no known month or date). Did I call the plumber? Did I pick up cat litter? These are in the margin of notes from a meeting about IP addresses. This folder is labeled I.T. Better hang onto it a little longer. Just move it to the bottom of the pile. Other stuff I'm staring at right now on my desk: two empty milk chug bottles, three empty water cooler cups, a small 20GB flash drive, a Sharpie, two business cards - one is a new dentist I've been meaning to call for four months, the other is fellow comedienne Chantal Carrere's - a cute picture of Meg, a Bliss card that says "How beautiful it is to be alive!" by Henry Septimus Sutton (I'm gonna Google that guy), a rolodex with Kirsta Grapentine's business card up, my office phone, my Bad Cat calendar, a rubber tree frog, a box of mini-dv tapes for a camera I no longer have, a box of business cards, post-its that say "Oh, Boo-Frickin'-Hoo Have a Cocktail and Get Over It," Burt's Bees chapstick, a second Sharpie, an automatic pencil sans lead, a pen, three grow your own tree kits, a lined notepad on top of a clipboard, an LPGA ball marker, a third Sharpie, mints, two golf booklets by Cindy and Allen Miller written in 1990, Norwegian coins, a tape dispenser, my cell phone, a James Brandess mouse pad and of course, my laptop. How big is my desk, you ask? I guess too big. If I felt encroached upon, maybe I would put some of this crap away. But then I would wonder where I put it. I think it comes down to labeling. I've thought about it over the years, and while I would thoroughly enjoy getting containers and drawers and cabinets and see-through boxes and an entire wall of shelves for three-ring binders and photo boxes and pencil boxes and CD/DVD towers and little bowls for stray coins and paper clips, I am horrified by having to categorize. I'm really good at contents. I can tell you what each individual thing is and what it means to me. But if you want me to group these things together so they can go in the same box with a lid on it and then you want me to write in one word what's in there...we could be here a while. As you might imagine, moving is torture for me. Well, normal moving, I should say. The kind of moving where you put all the stuff from the kitchen in several boxes, wrapped neatly for a safe journey. Maybe you take a polaroid of the dishes before you put them in the box and then you tape the picture to the outside of that box. It takes freakin' forever and the light's never right for the photos and some of the boxes are only half full cuz all the stuff from just that one room doesn't fit together. My kind of moving is torture for others. I start out great - the first few boxes actually have things from the same room in them. Then I branch out because I'm more concerned with how stuff FITS in the box then whether or not it relates to anything else in the box. You'd be surprised how perfectly full you can make a box when you have the entire house to pull from. I usually forget to take the picture until the box is either A.) full, at which time I take a picture of the open box and what's on top, or B.) taped up, at which time I take a picture of the taped up box and tape the picture to the box to remind me that there's stuff in there from everywhere and I should just open it to find out what! And all of the boxes follow my simple labeling system of what room the stuff mostly came from, which is helpful when re-distributing the boxes on the other side. Helpful if you are moving from, say a dorm room to a dorm room (all boxes say dorm room). Not so much if you are moving from a dorm room to a house (all boxes say dorm room). I think I can be good at labels. And I can be good at filling boxes. But not at the same time. I excel at either one or the other at any given moment. Right now I can think of several good labels. Office Supplies. Printer Cartridges. Sharpies. But the box for the Sharpies is too big. So I'll throw in some paper clips, pens, blank disks and two lanyards I just found in a drawer to top it off. Now I need a new label. Office Supplies? But not all my supplies are gonna fit in there, so I'm gonna need a bigger box. Then I'll have to change my Sharpie box to something else. I think my approach to organization is a lot like my approach to writing. I can come up with really good titles all day long. But heaven forbid if I should actually write the book or screenplay behind the title. Conversely, I have written numerous chapters for books and scenes from movies or plays that have no title. Collectively, I have organizer's block AND writer's block. I am just one big Chinese finger puzzle. Someone needs to pour me a cocktail so I can get over it. And figure out which comes first: category or content? the label or the box?!

My Lips are Sealed

I'm trying to remember the last time I wore lipstick. For the record, I haven't abandoned it altogether and I do look forward to my late 70's when I can slather it on and not really get all caught up in accuracy. I like make-up. I like eyeliner and mascara and a little dot of cover-up here and there and maybe even a dash of powder on my nose. I don't do blush anymore, which is actually a good thing because I'm not really sure I ever got that right. I studied pictures of Sheena Easton and Pat Benatar, even those girls from Heart, and I just could not get my results to match. It always looked to me like my face was on fire or that an embarrassing moment had struck me in all the wrong places. The giant blush brush was sort of fun, but hard to control. Basically the whole side of my face got hit and then there'd be a mad dash with a washcloth for corrections. I was trained by my mom and sister. They did try to help. Cheek, cheek, forehead, chin, a little on the nose. I was more like cheek, ear, fumble the brush, bangs, other cheek, too much nose, why chin, I've got a game, can we order pizza afterward? I don't know why everyone wants cheeks so rosey anyway. I've discovered shoving your face in the freezer for a few seconds can get you there in a pinch. You can also get there with a pinch. Lipstick is supposed to bring even more color to your face. I find it attracts too much attention. Case in point: my confirmation ceremony in 8th grade. Never mind I just got new glasses, still had braces and was wearing a powder blue t-shirt that matched a lengthy Little House on the Prairie skirt. My hair was out to here and my boobs were not. Such a pretty girl...let's get some color on those lips. That'll help. The only part about wearing lipstick I ever enjoyed was the part where you clamp your lips down on a tissue or toilet paper or a notecard. You smear the lipstick on, then you scale back on your initial commitment with a few smacks. I did a lot of smacking and then I would just wipe it all off with the tissue and be totally satisfied that my lips looked redder. I guess I'm more of a lip "tinter." This is much better if you think about crime scenes. No one's ever gonna find me because I left traces of a Lancome gift with purchase sample from Elder Beerman in Jackson, MI circa 1997 on a half empty wine glass or on a few cigarette butts outside a window... I don't wear it much anymore because I think it would be weird to all of a sudden start up again. People would notice. I suspect even strangers would raise an eyebrow. I'd walk into the post office and I think the woman behind the counter would think I was making fun of her. I'd feel sort of clown-y. Plus I hate the taste and how after a couple of hours it's sort of crumbly on your lips. It's like glue-sticking what's in the crayon sharpener to your mouth. When it gets like that, you have to re-apply. Which would mean I'd need a mirror. And a tissue or a piece of paper or a junk mail envelope. And someone to tell me it looks good. Women who can re-apply without a mirror and simply fold in their lips and pop them out again amaze me. They're all set. They can even answer a cell phone and push the baby at the same time they're doing it. I would be covered in red. It's just not my style. I'm more of a chapstick person. I can put it on without a mirror (well, not cherry) and probably while parallel parking. Plus, if you put chapstick on a pig, it's still a pig, but it's not worried about looking like a ho...

What Goes Around

I am green. At least I try to be. I wash my garbage, separate it by material type and give it to the city in a blue bin every Monday. Plastic, glass, aluminum, paper. I rinse out my whiskey and wine bottles, my beer and soda bottles and cans, my jars of jelly, salsa and mayo. I scrub flip top plastic containers that once held a salad or a dozen wings and I re-use them to hold other things. More salad, more wings. I pick the cheese off pizza boxes and dust off the crumbs. I've considered blow-drying the grease stains. I can tell I'm old because I used to just throw everything in one garbage can. Now I have the blue bin, a paper handled bag, a plastic grocery bag of plastic grocery bags and the garbage can. Whenever I consume something, disposing of it's wrapper gives me pause. If it's paper I wonder what kind of paper. If it's plastic I search it carefully for a recycling symbol. If it's aluminum, I rinse it out or ball it up. I check for a return fee and then throw it in the blue bin anyway, recalling the old guy in the mini van who raids our stash every week for returnables. I don't know if he knows we know, but I don't want to cut him off if it's putting gas in the van. And then I think, if it's putting gas in the van and you can smell that van coming five minutes before it arrives and long after it moves on, now my goodwill is messing up the atmosphere. I probably have black lung because I'm recycling. But I don't want to be rude. He's gotta make a living, too. And I really don't want to take the returnables to Stop and Shop myself. The last two trips were a disaster - damn those can cruncher machines that always break down or fill up on my third can when I have 103 more to push in. Have you met the guy who "maintains" these machines? When you do, tell him I'm still waiting. I also confess to leaving brands the store doesn't take in the rejected can return. It only holds so many and all of them are mine. I apologize for any inconvenience, which is what the digital display says to me whenever the machine breaks down. I mean well, but I just don't have that kind of time. Recycling at home and supporting a stranger works out better for me. It's all the rage to be green now, and it pains me to think of how willy nilly I once was with garbage. I imagine how much waste one person can be responsible for and I remember seeing a report in the news on it. Some guy decided to carry his garbage around with him for a week - whatever he generated he had to hold onto in a bag. What would be in my bag? Well, this week: giant empty plastic tray with lid from chick-fi-la which once held nuggets for 25 people, four wine bottles, a fifth of Dewers, a fifth of Tangaray, a fifth of Jack, a mini-keg of Heffeweizen, several beer bottles, several soda bottles, several soda cans, several crumpled up cocktail napkins, shrimp skins and tails, gift wrap, tissue paper, junk mail, cake box, frosting cans, an entire roll of used paper towels, a broken hanger, two pairs of holy socks, scooped cat litter and whatever I swept off the kitchen floor just before the party. I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out, but now that I recycle, I feel better about a lot of that crap at least coming back my way some day. I honestly don't know how it works and sometimes believe that stuff in the blue bin is secreted off in special trucks but driven to the same dump in the end. I don't know what goes into making a bottle that holds alcohol, or how many of them get recycled to make more bottles of alcohol, but I think something can be learned from the plastic water jug people. You buy a jug, and then you just refill it until it gets smooshy or gross. Then you buy another jug. And you recycle the old jug. If I had one big bottle of Jack, polished it off, then went down to the liquor store and just refilled it, think how many times I could do that before that bottle had to be recycled. Think of the space, the energy, the time, the resources, the money I would be saving everyone if they did not have to keep making so many individual bottles of Jack in a variety of sizes - nips, half pints, pints, 5ths, gallons, and "is this size legal?" Even beer bottles and cans, for that matter. Let's all just go down to the store and get refills. Think of the friends you'd make! The world would be a much happier place, you wouldn't have to wash your garbage and we could get rid of those damn can crunchers once and for all. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be putting anyone out of a job by eliminating those.

Flipping the Switch

A couple of years ago I walked in on a friend of mine watching a program I could not believe existed. I was horrified. Huge shirtless men and half-dressed women breathing heavily and sweating up a storm. They were given strange challenges that sometimes involved helmets and frequently shown enormous trays of desserts for something called "temptation." These gentle giants cried at the drop of a doughnut, not because they wanted it, but because they thought they still might want it even if they no longer wanted it because now they knew what it meant to want it and give in or not want it and move on. Or something. All I know is, I couldn't bear to watch. Fast forward to this past fall, shortly after my new love affair with the gym had begun, and presto. Or pesto...I saw that same program but with seemingly different faces and somehow more relevant testimony, and I was hooked. They were talking about calories. I know about calories! They were talking about working out. I know about working out! They were all way bigger than me, but I felt like I could relate. I wanted them to succeed. I got sucked into the drama of it all - the politics, the game-playing, the desperate need for immunity each week. I picked a favorite and then dumped him or her in one fell swoop when someone else cried harder. I cried more at this program than I think I have in my entire life. I don't know why. Why do overweight people make me cry? Well, they don't in general. But put them on a scale after they've busted their asses for a week with Jillian and Bob all up in their grill and just three small veggie sandwiches from Subway in their tummy and I watch the numbers flip on the scale through my fingers like a girl. If they've lost more than 4 pounds, I'm relieved. Between 1 and 3, I'm disappointed. Zero, I'm flabbergasted. Plus 1 or more and I reach for a Kleenex. Because they look so crestfallen. Then they reference their families. And they tried so hard. And they just don't get it. And Bob is holding his face just like I am. And Jillian's eyebrows are lowered and she shifts her weight and recrosses her arms. And you can hear a pin drop. Well you could if the dramatic music stopped for a sec. And then the sometimes pregnant, not as pregnant, then way pregnant hostess says, "Kristin. You gained a total of 2 pounds this week for a total percentage loss of well, I guess it's not a loss, is it? Can you tell us how you feel?" Then this sweet hostess starts to cry because she dropped a ton of weight a while back and of course now she's sort of pregnant looking and emotions are running high. And everybody starts crying because it really sucks to see someone who obviously worked hard get absolutely nothing in return for it. And then there's the underlying tone that this poor soul will now fall below the dreaded yellow line and likely be up for elimination in the next hour of the program. But even in the midst of all this, I am more impressed with Kristin than ever. Wiping my tears, I think, hey, that chick stood on the scale for at least 7 minutes while all this went down and she weighs 302 pounds right now. She's in a purple jog bra the size of a mattress pad, wearing spandex shorts stretched to the nines and the thing is, she started at 349 pounds. She's wearing hoop earrings, her hair is styled nicely and she's made several key alliances in the house that could save her from the ultimate demise. She's lost weight; I like her chances even if she gets kicked off because you can see it in her eyes that the switch has flipped. Maybe that's what gets me about this show. People flipping the switch. Making a conscious effort to change themselves completely. Not just lose a few pounds and gain it back. But to literally lose a whole person in a lot of ways. That's a tremendous sacrifice. All the ways you used to see yourself and assume how others saw you are stripped away. It's liberating. It's compelling. Change your body type and see what happens. I don't have that option without maybe a boob job and some serious weightlifting, so I marvel at those who pull it off. I wonder too, I'm not gonna lie, how someone can get to 350+ pounds in the first place and not be in the NFL or WWF. I'm just talking about maybe your bus driver or that woman at the grocery store who's always testing the melons from her motorized cart. I'm not being mean, I'm being honest. I think it takes a very long time and a series of unfortunate events to get to that point, but once you're there, and I've seen it on TV, you can get out of it in a heartbeat. Well maybe 160 of em per minute for 12 solid episodes, but you can burn it all off is what I'm saying. You can get back to average and then some if you really want to. The colorful, XXXXXL t-shirted contestants on Biggest Loser are the walking, then running, then sprinting, then cycling, swimming, hiking, jumping, iron pumping proof of that. They're getting back to who they really are, and I can no longer look away. It's on again tonight. Someone pass me the Kleenex.

One Good Fool

Today is my birthday. I've always felt secretly pleased to have been born on a day for fools. It's like being handed a "get out of being serious for free" card. Expectations are immediately lowered. Levels of amusement markedly raised. I can be a goofball and well, we knew this would happen. The thing is, it almost didn't happen. My mother is charged with telling me my birth story every year (it is tradition), but I wonder if I shouldn't just tell it like I've heard it all these years and see if I'm right on or if I'm not as great a listener as some of my past bumper stickers have claimed. I will likely romanticize it more than she did. I will put in a few fade outs for effect. I will create a sense of urgency that the nurses may not have felt. And my mother's hair will be perfectly sprayed into a beehive I recall from one of her earliest photos with me. Or was it Aunt Susan? At any rate, here it goes...I was born on April 1, 1968 in Fort Knox, Kentucky at Ireland Army Hospital. My Dad was in Vietnam. My Mom was there (heh heh). I believe either on that very day or days before she was driving my Dad's old stick shift car somewhere and got stuck on a hill and the car kept rolling back. It could have been months before. I just know that my Mom can't drive a stick and I can and she always says the only reason is because she was pregnant with me and was stuck on that hill. If only I'd been born sooner! I could've clutched her out of there. Anyway, I digress. The sheets at Ireland Army Hospital were very green, the doctors and nurses were all decked out in green, my Mom's gown was green and the whole place was one big shamrock green building. Hence, my subsequent degree from Michigan State. Mere blocks away was a huge vault of gold (Fort Knox) and a horse racing track. I was destined to be rich and love horses. One out of two is not bad. When my Mom went into labor I was two weeks early. I was not expected to arrive until April 12, which coincidentally, was my Grandpa's birthday. It would have been equally special to share this date with him and quite likely would have excused me from a few minor indiscretions (beer, whiskey, cards, pretty women), but being funny would not have been nearly as, well, funny. I'm told showing up early was not my idea. It was brought on by a series of seemingly repeatable circumstances but in hindsight, not enviable. My mother is a chocolate covered cherry fanatic. They were then, and I believe still are, her favorite. She ate two boxes on March 31. Listen, she was preggers, her husband was on the other side of the world, my sister was running around in diapers, maybe the cable went out, probably it was cold outside, give her a break. Minutes later she wasn't feeling so hot, so my Oma (her mom and in many ways, my beloved second mom) rushed her to the hospital where no less than 12 blood sugar specialists soaped up and put on their surgical masks to consult her about the baby. "Mrs. Fracker, there's a good chance your baby will be born mentally challenged." Fade out. And we're back...it's April 1, about 9:30 p.m. The room is packed with doctors and nurses. Many looks of concern and anxious whispers. My Mom is so matter of fact, I can only imagine her saying, "I will have the baby now" in a thick German accent with her perfectly swooped beehive and then everyone prepping for delivery. Turns out it was a good idea to just get it over with. I popped into the world at 10:00 p.m. weighing in at a cool 6 lbs. 7 oz. or something like that (I still fudge my weight a little, a girl's gotta have some secrets) and a whopping 22" long. Tall for my age then. Not so much now. It's hard to tell at the time if I was mentally challenged. I couldn't hold a pen and Sudoku hadn't come onto the American scene yet. But there's no question I was an April Fool's baby, which my Grandma (Dad's mom) delighted in calling me from that day forward. My Dad found out in code that I'd made it into the world. The overseas call was a bit garbled, but one line came through loud and clear: "Mr. Fracker, your wife Sue Ann had the baby." Since my Mom's name is Helga, this could have been cause for confusion or jail time, but he knew what it meant. They both agreed if I was a girl, I'd be named Sue Ann, for some famous actress at the time whose name looked beautiful on the big screen in the only scripty font available at the time. 10 months later, Pops and I met for the first time in a local restaurant over steaks and fries. Me in my high chair, him in the booth. By way of introductions, I crumpled up my napkin and threw it at him. To this day, that's still how I greet people. I relish being a fool. And I thank my parents for giving me such an auspicious start. Happy Birthday to me...Mom, let me know if I got it right.

My Cah Is Pahked in Heaven

I miss my car. Whenever I say that, nice people around here go, "Oh? What happened to your cah?" Which makes me even sadder cuz it was born a car and then evolved so much in its short life that it died a cah. It traveled all the way from Michigan to start up fresh on the east coast and one fateful night in June '08, it was smashed in by a renegade pick-up truck with nothing to lose. It was a 2007 Chevy Impala 4-door, white with black leather interior and those cool feaux wood accents on the doors and dash that old people like. I'm old people! It had a power sunroof and a kick ass stereo and at some point XM radio. And 27 minutes of OnStar left. You could fit a toddler in the glove compartment (presumably...) and the back seat had seatbelts for three people. It still smelled a little new. The trunk was big enough for a flat screen TV or four sets of golf clubs or 9 garbage bags full of 80's clothes you could finally part with. It rode smooth. It went fast. It stored important things in the console. Extra change. Scattered pictures. Emergency glass breaking hammer thingy. GPS lady. Leftover french fry. For several years prior I had been an SUV-er. The Impala was my first real car after a series of Rangers, Jeeps, Explorers and Trailblazers. I felt re-introduced to driving like a normal person - low to the ground, close to the road. Maneuverable. Swift. I showed it off when I got it. There were mixed reviews (it's just a Chevy for God's sake!) but I didn't care - I only heard raves. The tiny and faint shoe prints of my nieces on the backs of the front seats were still there after its demise. They loved their test ride in it around the curvy country roads of Traverse City...

What happened: Meg and I were coming home from a show in Clinton. I pulled up to the Weston tolls. There were cars in front of me and I realized I was in the cash lane with a fast pass. The fast pass lane was wide open, so I flipped on my blinker and began moving to the right. I had just pulled into the open lane when BOOM. We were hit from behind and pushed for a ways toward the open toll. Thank God no one was in front of us. Long story short, the entire back end of my dear sweet Impala was crunched, the rear window blown out and the license plate apparently left spinning and retrieved from about 300 feet away. Meg had a bit of whiplash; I was unscathed, outwardly. The other guy, as he is still known today, banged his head on his steering wheel and cracked it open. He looked awful. But it was totally his fault. I expected him to be cuffed on the scene. Instead, the cops noted he refused an ambulance and the tow truck guy helped pull his front bumper out so he could drive off. Meanwhile, Meggie and me waited while all this went down, finally got the car loaded for tow, sat up front with the tow truck driver, were towed to a body shop approximately 45 minutes from our apartment and spent $80 in cab fare getting home. Later, when the Impala was deemed totaled and I visited it in the body shop graveyard to collect my things, I had a hard time saying goodbye. It was surrounded by so many fallen comrades, so much loss. From the front, it looked like nothing happened. But walk around to the back and....sigh. It was over. I think about that car a lot and wonder what it would be like to still have it. Truth is, we really don't have room for it now. I don't miss the payment. And my carbon footprint now matches my girlish figure. So part of me wonders if it knew. The car knew it was a luxury. A bit excessive. Impractical. And for me, it made the ultimate sacrifice, hurled itself in front of a moving Masshole and took itself out of the equation. I think it knew two cars is too much around here. We still have the Corolla. We get around fine. But on really sunny days when we want to hit the open road and visit some little town on the water, I'm not gonna lie, I do miss my cah...

Hi Janie

I heard it's your birthday. Mine's coming up. (Billy's, too). April 1st. People always make fun - oh, you were born on April Fool's? No foolin'? Like I haven't heard that a million times. No foolin'. Ha. The next time somebody tells me they were born on Christmas Day, I'm gonna be like, "You were born on Christmas Day? Well, Jesus Christ." Happy Birthday, Janie! xoxo

Take the Stairs

I need more motivation to stay in shape. Going to the gym is great and all, but it can get dull. I think when the sun finally shines and it gets above freezing, it’s more interesting to venture outside to work out. If you’re like me, you can work in your workout when you’re doing other things. Running errands, shopping, buying cheese. I’m a firm believer in taking the stairs. Park on the top floor; pretend the elevator’s broken. Whenever possible, avoid the escalator – go up the middle and take the stationary set. Or here’s a concept: keep moving on the escalator. Just because the stairs are in motion doesn’t mean they’re not stairs anymore. You could still step up. By the way, if you are going to stop and stand on the escalator, please get to the far right so the rest of us can get by. And if you are a couple in love, follow this rule by stacking yourselves one in front of the other instead of standing hand in hand side by side on one whole stair. I don’t want to get smooched when I bust up the middle. There are lots of ways to burn calories outside the gym, you just have to put yourself in situations that make you move. Park far away. Imagine your world without drive thrus. Buy heavier stuff. The other day it was very windy and I asked Meg if we were burning more calories walking in the wind. She said yes. See? Don’t sit inside and wait for things to calm down out there – take advantage of it. Especially if you are a runner. I wish I was a runner. Like an outdoorsy runner that puts on the special pants and has glow in the dark shoes and good form. I can’t run just for the sake of running. I need a reason. Like maybe I’m on fire. And even then I don’t have to run far cuz I also have to stop drop and roll. When I go to the gym I get on the steppers and the climbers and the elliptical because I like the robo cop feel. I like the motion of running but not the impact. I am a horrible runner. I wheeze. I bitch. My knees protest. And the whole time I’m thinking why, why, why. Every step is punctuated with why, why, why. Where am I going? When will it end? Probably there should be more air. I know why people say running will prolong your life. It actually takes an eternity to run one minute. When I go outside to exercise, I’ll jump up on a cement wall and walk it like a tight rope. I’ll do step ups on a park bench. I’ll chin up a tree branch. I might even climb a tall fence. But if I gotta run… I need something chasing me. Like a big brown Grizzly. Or a giant flying spider. Or someone with a spoonful of peas. Otherwise, why? With running, incentives don’t work. Even if it’s pizza on a stick instead of a carrot, I’m not falling for it. I am more likely to run from something than toward it. That’s why I think those treadmills at the gym would be a lot more effective for people like me if they were longer and you could fit a monster on it just behind you. There should be a toggle switch on the panel – Monster/No Monster. “You need a monster today, Ms. Fracker?” “Mike, I need a monster every day.” Flip the switch and run like hell. Sigh. I think I'd rather just take the stairs.

Stranger Than Fiction

You're not supposed to talk to strangers. Or accept candy from them. But I think the older you get, you can't help it. We don't live in bubbles. There are people all around, many of them just dying for someone to talk to. Let's face it, all your "friends" are pretty much on Facebook - contact with real people has seriously diminished since school. You gotta reach out now and then when you're next to someone and just say hi. Make eye contact. Give a little smile. I've done it. It's crazy! Most people don't know how to react. I smile at a stranger and I think they think I'm weird. I really do. Most raise an eyebrow. Some look over their shoulders. No, dude, I mean you. I was smiling at you. A few will actually change direction, or check their purse. What the hell am I smiling about? If I wave it's even worse. Too friendly. Back off. I don't blame them. I used to react that way too when someone stared a little too long in my direction. I used to feel like maybe I had something in my teeth or I forgot to put on pants again. I would busy myself with my cell phone or re-organize the stuff in my pockets. Anything to avoid a conversation with a stranger. I was really bad about it for a long time. I think my mom's incredible compassion for everyman made me hesitate. She is a sponge face, and I have her face. Standing in the grocery line, all she had to do is look at the woman next to her and minutes later that woman would be pouring her guts out. At McDonald's, we could never just order. The distraught teenager behind the register would catch one glimpse of my mother's kind face and we would get an earful about how the lunch rush was going. I just wanted my nuggets. My mom can talk to anyone. I guess when I say talk, I really mean listen because people just reveal themselves and she hardly says a word. No subject is too delicate, no matter too private. When you're young, that's a frightening prospect and not a can of worms you want to open with an innocent smile. I'm older now than she was when I witnessed the sponge, so I figure it's time to just give in. My powers have yet to be realized, but I am my mother's daughter. I just cut my cable bill in half, so I'm starved for entertainment anyway. What better way to amuse oneself than to get strangers to open up a little? I tried it at the RMV. That's east coast for DMV. I was re-newing my driver's license, changing it from MI to MA. The lady behind the desk seemed disgruntled. I thought it was just her, but I'm told that's a pre-requisite for the job. I pictured her smiling in the interview and the supervisor giving her a little tip. Turn that smile upside down, lady. You want this job or not?

So when B38 was called, I handed her my forms. She pulled them toward her and kept her eyes on her computer.

"It's $90."
I smiled. "What a deal!"
No reaction. Eyes still on computer. "Look in the viewer for the eye test."
I chuckled. "Oh, and me without my glasses...can't believe I made it here!"
No reaction. Eyes still on computer. "Read the smallest line you can see."
I sobered a little. Peered into the viewer. I read the letters.
Her: "Okay. Do you see a flash, right side or left?"
Me: "Ever wonder who writes these eye test lines? I want that gig. How hard can it be?"
No reaction. "Right or left?"
"Right. Left. Right."
"Pass."
She typed something in the computer.
"Wow," I said. "That is some cast you got on your finger. What happened there?"
She actually looked at me. Oooh, I think I got her.
"What, this?" she nearly flipped me off.
I laughed. "No, your other hand."
She smiled. She is so fired!!!
"Ha ha. You wouldn't believe it if I told you."
"Try me."
"You know those tension rods you use to put up curtains? The metal ones that have a spring in them?"
"Sure, I've seen them."
"Well I was putting up curtains and the damn thing slipped and snapped back, sliced my finger wide open. Almost fell off!"
"Holy crap! That musta hurt. Was there a lot of blood? I would have passed out."
"I almost did! It was awful. I hadda call my daughter and she took me to the ER. Nine stitches. It hurts like hell."
"That's one hell of a bandage. Must suck trying to type with it."
"Nah, it's okay. I usually just hunt and peck anyway."
"Was your daughter scared? Did she freak out when you called her?"
She gathered my forms. "I gotta take your picture, hon. Sit in the chair real quick. Yeah, she was like, Mom, what did you do? She wrapped my hand all up real tight and got me in the car. Smile! Great. You can change it if you want, but I think it looks good."
She showed me the photo. I am not vain, but I want to be excused for accepting this particular version of me as I was more interested in my conversation with a stranger. Looking at my license now I believe I resemble someone who ate all the cookies.

"It's fine. Kinda funny, huh, when your daughter has to take care of you - you're probably used to the other way around."
"Oh, yes, if you knew my daughter. We had a good laugh about it. She reminded me about Mr. Prince." She tapped something in the computer, looked at my forms. Then back at me. "Mr. Prince was her stuffed turtle when she was a kid. It got ripped in half somehow, maybe the dogs, I don't know. But anyway, she cried so hard. I sewed Mr. Prince up good as new. So she says, 'Mom, this is just like Mr. Prince. You'll be good as new!"
"That's so great. She's right, I'm sure - Lynda, is it?"
"Yep, that's me," she grinned and pointed to herself with the bandaged finger.
I wrote the check for $90 and handed it to her. "Thanks for your help - I'm glad to check this off my list today. And it was fun meeting you!"
"Of course, no problem. You should get your license in the mail in the next week or so."
"Did you ever get those curtains up?"
She smiled wryly, "Went with the mini blinds, actually."
We both cracked up.

I left the RMV smiling. People think I'm weird. But I don't care. Every once in a while, one doesn't.

Jack to Reality

Vegas has a way of illuminating an otherwise forgettable moment. I guess that's why what happens there always stays there. Try to tell someone else about it when you're not there anymore and it just doesn't have the same luster. I just got back from Vegas this morning and I feel like my head is still there. Must have something to do with falling asleep on a jet plane and waking up at my desk... I still have the Goldfish Bonus song ringing in my ears and I keep seeing 17, 20, 32, 5 and 00 / 0 float across my screen. We were there for 4 days. I was a bit sauced for 3.5 of them. I think this is because you can pull up a chair to any given game of chance and within moments a woman in some form of mesh hosiery and a too teenie bra asks you if you want a cocktail. Looking at her like it's 8:00 a.m. because it's, well, 8:00 a.m. is a natural reaction, but what becomes even more natural is your acceptance that she is dressed properly for Friday morning at the Rio and you would in fact, love a cocktail. After all, you've been here since yesterday. Minutes after she delivers your breakfast Jack and Diet, it comes as no surprise she is now the lead dancer spotlighted in a one-woman show atop a row of slot machines 6 feet away. Of course she is. She's not doing anything until you need another drink anyway. It's not like that at home. It's not like that at work. It's not like that anywhere else, really. Order a drink at Chili's and you'll be lucky if the big guy behind the bar remembers your straw. He's not going to start tripping the light fantastic for you. It's such a letdown. Your expectations for entertainment and stimulation soar in Vegas. Everything's a show. Everything's as lit up as you are. It's hard to shake that VIP feeling when you come home. Things dull quickly; there's no action here. No one's trying to accost you with racy booklets of chicks boasting aeriolas too big for their stars. No one's drinking out of a 3 foot genie bottle. No one's removing their oxygen mask to hit a cigarette while simultaneously pressing Max Bet. It's too quiet. There's just the usual hum of the office lights. Every time the phone rings I think I caught a scatter for 30 credits, but it's just Verizon. Transitioning is always the hardest part. Vegas is fading fast and reality is at the door ready with a smile and a handshake. Welcome back. I've got your bills. You need to make an eye appointment. No, I did not bring drinks. What's this $2 for?

While I was in Vegas I thought about my cocktail of choice and topic #25: why Jack is better than Dad. I'm referring to Jack Daniels and Old Granddad. The thing is, I enjoy both. There was a time when I much preferred Old Granddad. I liked the sound of it. I liked the raised eyebrow ordering it would illicit. I liked it's grainy, alcohol-y taste. It's powerful stuff, the Dad. I made fast friends with the very few others who shared my passion for it. Whenever Granddad was not available, I would fall back on Jack or Jim. For a while I thought Jack and Jim were interchangeable, practically twins. But Jack surfaced, the cream rose. Jack is simply smoother and rarely makes me regret him in the morning. It's not like I go around pounding shots of whiskey and/or bourbon to determine their distinctions. I'm not an expert; I don't pontificate. I merely befriend and then see who lasts. Jack has endured, no question. Granted, I can only have so many nips and it's best we part ways for the night (and perhaps a few days after). Maybe I hook up with a Mich Ultra or two in between, but it always comes back to Jack. Bartenders and friends have told me to avoid the Diet part, stick to Coke or even Coke Zero, but I can't help it. Coke is too sweet and Zero is not often an option. I'm sure my liver, spleen and whatever else can turn green is hoping I'll give it up soon, but I am a whiskey girl at heart, I guess. As long as I keep hitting the gym, wearing the patch and avoiding heights, a few swigs of my favorite blend can't do any real damage, right? I vow to re-evaluate in 10 years. Maybe by then I'll favor pina colatas. I do like getting caught in the rain...

Are You Insane?!

Topic #24...Insanity breeds confidence. Sometimes I like to put a few big words together and see what happens. What was I thinking? I don't remember why I wrote this, but it must have been inspired by the number of crazy people I've seen attempt things that a saner body would not. I wish I were crazier. I might do more stuff. Like take the bus. Or eat at Arby's. Or bitch about standing in line at the post office. I think crazy people are missing a few filters, the kind that give you pause and make you look before you leap. I wish I could remove my filters for awhile and get a taste of the action. I want to be one of those people you see walking down the street yelling at cars to slow down. I want to be wearing next to nothing when I do it. I want to go someplace fancy and order a lobster, a crab and two sets of pliers, then put on safety goggles and a garbage bag and ask for extra butter. I want to drop everything and go to Hollywood and hand my screenplay to the first famous person I see. I want to write a screenplay. I want to have the balls to ride a roller coaster on top of a building while the building is rotating opposite the earth. I want to go to Mexico. I want to ride a bus in Mexico. One of those overcrowded ones where everyone's yelling in Spanish and I have to throw my luggage on top of the bus before I board. I want to stand in the aisle cuz I can't get a seat and halfway through the trip I want someone to hand me a chicken. I want no less than three toddlers gripping my legs like those little koala bear clamps that used to hold my pencil. I want to be in situations where I don't know the answer and I don't know what's next and God help me, I'm not worried about where the nearest bathroom is. I want to be without a net. Bungee jump off the bed and see if I spring back at the end of the day. I'm just not crazy enough. I'm too sensible. Sensibility is nice, but by the time I weigh all the options, the boat has left the dock and crazy people are yelling bon voyage. When you look at your life, see yourself, review your notes, I think most people are pretty satisfied with how they turned out. I like me all right, but I'm a bit of coaster right now. Not the kind you put drinks on, though I have held my fair share of cocktails while waiting for crazy people to come back. And not the amusement park kind, though I've been told by a psychic I am on a bit of a roller coaster. More like the sled kind. One of those plastic circle sleds that you sit cross-legged on with those plastic strip handles for grips. I'm on that sled coasting small slopes and handling it well. I need a bigger hill. One so steep I have no choice but to slip off the edge and hold on for dear life. One that rips the plastic grips from my hands so I gotta throw my arms up in the air. One that's more ice than snow so the sled spins me around and around while plummeting toward the forest at the bottom. One that gets me safely through the trees despite coming horrifically close to an Ethan Frome ending. I've been on top of those monster hills. I've surveyed those courses. I've imagined the worst. And I've picked up my sled, dusted the snow off my ass and gone in for hot chocolate. I'm not that crazy. But I hope I'm headed there some day.