Glamour Girl

For my son’s fifth birthday, my mom came all the way from Maryland to be part of the birthday festivities. Of course, in typical kindergarten fashion, Ara got sick and generously shared his cold germs with me. My mother, a newly converted herbalist, took charge of our healing program. She administered hot and cold compresses, echinachea, charcoal tablets and endless garlic cloves of garlic on buttered toast to head the bad guys off at the pass, or at least give them a dinner break. As a staunch granola head, I accepted all forms of natural healing and vigorously cleared my chi, neti potted my nasal cavities, and took hot and cold showers to help the healing cause.

The night before the big birthday party, Ara kept coughing himself awake, crying, drifting off, then coughing himself awake again. Of course that meant that the entire household followed suit. Finally, at about 3:00 am I broke down. I crept into the guest bedroom and whispered my mother awake, then grabbed a jacket and ran out for children's Tylenol. 

King Sooper’s was surprisingly busy for three in the morning, bustling with customers and stock boys alike. I kind of liked the weird middle of the night vibe. Cheerily I greeted everyone I encountered, and asked a cashier for assistance in finding the medicine aisle. For some reason though, not many people smiled back. I was puzzled to find many of them skitter off with sideways eyes. I breathed into my palm and sniffed. Well, it wasn’t a basket of roses but certainly not so horrible as to provoke that reaction. Subdued, I selected three bottles and paid for them.

When I got home, my mother had turned on the living room light and was walking my fretful child, who was draped pitifully over her shoulder like a boneless chicken. “Got them!” I stage whispered triumphantly, waving the bag open. My mother took one look at me and started laughing. 

“What?” I demanded, but she couldn’t speak. “Just go look in the mirror,” she finally managed, and I did.

So. This is why women check themselves in the mirror before leaving the house. My face was amply festooned with trails of charcoal. There was a ring around my mouth, a smudge on my nose, and my horrified shriek revealed that yes, even my teeth were completely black. 

But there was a silver lining, believe it or not. Ara’s cough almost completely went away and the birthday party was a big success. And I have stopped eating charcoal.

Except for every once in a while, on special occasions. Like the flu.

At the Dominion of Kings

When my brother Ras was just a little dumpling, around seven or eight, my parents bought into the American dream and took us all to King’s Dominion, the closest amusement park.

As we raced away with dollar bills stuffed into our pockets, my mother bleated after us: “Watch Ras!” Of course. Our job.

I thought it would be best if my brother stuck to rides like the Cups and Saucers and the Ferris Wheel, and due to his lack of life experience I figured he’d be an easy sell.

But no. I didn’t factor in my brother’s innate love for danger, which had up till then only surfaced once, when he accidentally walked all the way up Carroll avenue to Sligo Church hoping to catch up with my mom after she’d fetched us from school. When we spied him, sniveling under his pageboy cut at the intersection, we dragged him into the car and all three chastised him so thoroughly that I thought he’d wear a bike helmet and shin guards just to go to the bathroom forever more.

He observed the cotton candy smudged babies looping vacantly on the Ferris Wheel, with all the enthusiasm of someone waiting for an elevator, but just as I thought he was about to get in line he spied a group of bigger kids racing toward the Rebel Yell, and off he went. Reason, logic and mild threats were ineffective. He stubbornly ignored me and inched forward with the rest of the lemmings.  

Finally we reached the front of the line. My brother, scrawny and screaming, leaped in and excitedly yelled at me to join. I gingerly stepped in next to him, and the “safety” bar descended over our laps and hung there, a good six inches away. No seatbelts, no harness. Just one thin stainless steer bar keeping us from launching into orbit like two curry scented satellites. I ordered my brother to hang on, but at the first apex, the people in the car before us threw their hands up in the air and yelled. My foolish brother followed suit, and as we began the first drop, I saw his sixty pound body start to float off the seat.

“Grab the bar!” I screamed, illustrating by clutching the bar. He pretended not to hear me, waving his toothpick arms around and yelling with the big kids. He continued to rise. Terror pinned me to the seat but with a superhuman effort I managed to lift one leg and throw it over his lap, tethering him to the seat. He didn’t appear to notice and kept waving his arms above his head. 

As we sped up and down, I felt my leg starting to go numb, but I feared losing my leg less than I feared facing my parents if I lost my brother.

When we finally stopped, I grabbed my leg and hoisted it off of him. Without a backward glance he leaped off the train and ran to brag to my mother as I limped along behind him. “What’s wrong with your leg?” my mom asked. 

This is the part where you expect me to say, “nothing,” and be a silent and brave heroine, but nope! I told the whole story to my family, and everyone was duly impressed. I might have even gotten a cotton candy as a reward, or maybe a little toy. All I know is that my good deed was somehow rewarded, and so this story has a happy ending in more ways than one. 

Flatula

His super power was flatulence, and he wasn’t afraid to use it. On the nine thirty seven train, particularly, he used it to cut a wide swath of space round him, leaving him free to rest his dirty sneakers on the opposite seat, or to lie down with his long legs stretched across the aisle, hogging several benches. His record was seven rows cleared in three minutes and seventeen seconds, but he believed that with diligence and a good, fiber free diet rich in fried cheese and food truck curry he could bring that number down to under two. 

The trick to improving his number was that it had to be made clear, and fast, that this was not a one time thing. Most people sitting nasally adjacent would tolerate one blast, but would quickly relocate when it became apparent that he was some sort of human Glade mister who spritzed the air approximately every fifty one seconds or so. 

He loved the recognition in their eyes best. First the delicate sniff, and the surreptitious glance round the room, then the relief as the initial assault dissipated. He loved watching the glaze return to their eyes as their gazes fell back to their phones. How quickly they forgot. Well, they would not forget him. And he would fire again. 

Fate stepped in one fateful morning in July. He had mixed orange juice with his glass of milk that morning, a surefire cocktail that never failed to get the ball rolling. He was seated on his favorite bench when the woman who would change his life boarded the train. Her name was Eunice and she normally took the nine oh five, but had binge watched “Breaking Bad” the previous night, which had resulted in a poor night of sleep compounded by her chronic sinus condition. Now she nervously took the seat opposite him and checked her texts. Two messages already from her pimply faced boss, demanding to know why she was late for her shift at the toll booth. 

He was instantly enchanted. There was just something about the way her eyes squinched up as she searched the tiny keyboard, the way she bit her lip. The boxy cut of her uniform promised hidden delights (although Eunice was built like a tank and the polyester shirt accurately outlined her figure). He was just imagining unbuttoning that top button, the one that made her third chin dimple so fetchingly, when in his stomach the orange juice rolled over and start talking to the milk. Frantically he clenched his cheeks and managed to reabsorb the threat somehow. Whew. He took a deep breath of the clear, unsullied train air and at that moment Eunice glanced up. 

As their eyes met he felt a shiver of some ancient awakening. He was not a spiritual man, but Eunice, who had read every metaphysical book on soul mates available at her library, thought she recognized in him her mate of several lifetimes, including the Cleopatra one, the Spongebob one (he was Patrick) and a parallel lifetime, seventeen lightyears away, where they ate mostly beans and grubs. Not one to waste time, she delicately opened the lines of communication.

“Hey,” she said gruffly in her adenoidal tones, and her voice ran its fingers through every fiber of his fiber-depleted being. He shivered, and again, suddenly felt his colon preparing to unkink. By neglecting to answer her and squeezing every muscle south of Taos, again he managed to stave off disaster. He’d have to wait till he got off at his stop. He couldn’t burn the crops before this angel of mercy. When he opened his eyes and sighed with relief he noticed her looking at him weirdly and he realized he hadn't responded to her. 

“Uh, hi,” he said, and then it was as though a dam broke. Their small talk rivaled the great ramblings of a Will Shakespeare or a Ben Jonson, covering everything from current Facebook memes to the changing of the fish stick batter at the local pub.

As his stop grew near, so did his apprehension. How could he ensure that he see her again? For this was clearly The One. At the same time, the fart baby burgeoning in his lower colon was demanding birthing, and any second now. He was preparing to ask for her number when he realized she was gathering her belongings and was getting off at the same stop. If he could just hold it in for a few seconds more, they could exchange digits, she’d be on her way and he could unleash his farty fury in a safe, secluded area.

He clenched his bum and minced off the train as she lumbered off behind him. “Oh, crap,” she bellowed daintily, as, juggling her cigarette and lighter, she lost her grip on her phone. It skittered past him and came to a stop. 

“Allow me,” he said gallantly, and forgetting that the release valve was unfortunately positioned in direct nasal range, he bent to retrieve it. In that fateful moment he felt his muscles give way and a mighty stream rushed from his nether region, accompanied by a haunting butt trumpet solo. Several passersby, catching a surprised whiff, collapsed in heaps on the ground, thus ensuring their physical safety by falling below the line of fire, which erupted in a blinding flash as the simultaneous flare from her lighter ignited the jet stream, and that was the last thing either of them knew.

Epilogue

Seventeen light years away, in a parallel universe on the planet Girth, a square shaped woman with three chins is sitting down to supper with her man.

“Anyway, my horoscope said that I need to makes some serious changes, or face some extremely negative consequences,” she says, lighting up a Lucky.

“Uh huh,” he says, absentmindedly, eyes on the neckline of her muumuu where her third chin swung delicately over the lace. 

She leans over to uncover a dish when suddenly she feels a ripple in the force, as would be caused by a massive explosion far, far away. As the matrix realigns itself and her mind clears, she sees him reaching for the dish.

“NO!” she screams, and lunging forward, she knocks the plate of beans from his surprised hand. “I think we should switch to kale,” she explains apologetically, kicking the spilled beans under the table and handing him a plate of greens. 

Birthday Cakes and My Mistakes

Many years ago, for some childhood birthday, my mother threw me a little shindig. In those days the most intimate circle of friends for me was comprised of cousins, and they duly arrived, bearing gifts and big smiles. One of the families, however, had clearly forgotten the party and arrived a little out of breath. Their gift had been obviously purchased at a gas station on the way over. They assured me that it was only PART of my gift and that the second and BIGGER portion was yet to come.

It took me several months of springing at them hopefully whenever they swam into view (might I add, bearing NO gift) to realize that in fact, the promised second part of my present was not coming. In fact, the second part DID NOT EXIST. It was a white lie. A red herring. A carrot at the end of a stick wrapped up in twenty seven nesting boxes and tied all around with pink ribbons and caught in some inaccessible dimension.

I accidentally revisited this lesson at school just the other day. Last semester a wonderful writing professor who loved my work asked to keep my final paper, without his comments added, to read to future classes. He promised to send me an email with his thoughts separately.

Every day for the next month I hopefully checked my email, and even nebbishly sent him notes a couple of times, false cheer and exclamation marks spread thickly over my words. 

“Hi, Dr. Simpson! I hope you are having a WONDERFUL summer!! I’ve been enjoying it, especially with all the rain!! It’s like we’re Seattle, huh?! Haha!! So, I’m sure you’ve been enjoying your time off but I was wondering if you’d had a chance to …” 

Blah blah blah. You get my drift. I’m ashamed to admit that I crafted two or three of these odiously lighthearted missives before I gave up, at least for the summer. But about thirty seconds after the fall semester began I jumped right back on the cart and started smacking the horse. 

Still no response. I was positive something was wrong with the email system. Come on, it's  Microsoft Outlook. You'd be suspicious too.

A couple of days ago as I was sitting in the King Center courtyard morosely chewing a burrito flavored power bar and pretending it was good, I spied him rocketing past me. “Dr. Simpson!” I bellowed, leaping up and startling the guy who was enjoying his actual real life burrito across from me. (Oh, another thing I’ve learned at school: just because someone shares your table in the courtyard at school, it doesn’t mean they want to talk to you. It’s like sharing an elevator. Seriously. Behave like everyone else and act like your phone is the most interesting thing in the world.)

He turned with a hunted look. “Oh, hi,” he stammered. “Uh, I’m really really late for a class so I can’t talk but I got your emails and I am sending you my comments later tonight! I swear. Sorry it’s taken so long but your paper got buried in a big stack of other paperwork and I’ve just been … I swear … tonight … I haven’t forgotten … “ the last few words were lost as he barreled away from me.

Pleased, I threw the rest of my healthy snack away and celebrated with a Snickers bar. 

The next morning, I checked and re-checked. Still no email. At the end of the day, still nothing. A week later, still nothing. It was then that the memory popped into my head. This was my gas station gift! There is no part two. I shared this epiphany with a friend who listened kindly and then gave me his keen, insightful advice. “Just get over it.”

Okay, fine. Thanks, man. But I kind of can’t. 

So, what is the acceptable time to wait until you check something off your list as a bad debt? I still don’t know. But then I’m the kid still waiting for the second half of her birthday present over here. 

The Lesson

My friend Rachel came from Maryland to visit many years ago. Rachel is a pretty girl and one of her favorite things is to go out at night and chat up all the boys. It’s her Olympics. 

One evening, after poring over my pathetic wardrobe of yoga tops and thrift shop skirts, we finally found a dress that met with her approval, and to ensure success she shared a tactic with me. She instructed me to enter the room, walk past a guy I found cute, then turn and smile coyly over my shoulder at him. 

“But why don’t I just smile at him when I see him?” I asked, reasonably. “I could wave, too.” I illustrated by grinning like a baboon and flailing my arm wildly, taking out a small picture frame and upsetting the cat. 

“You just don’t!” she said. “It’s called flirting! Come on—there must be someone you like right now.”

Unenthusiastically I sorted through my most recent feelings. Hm. Euphoria over a good parking space? New LOTR movie coming out? Nope, those couldn’t possibly—hello, what’s this? Somewhere in that tangle of emotions I recalled a funny feeling in my tummy after I’d encountered a cute sushi chef. I had attributed it to a bad shrimp, but could I have been wrong? Were love and salmonella so close in texture that they could in fact be mistaken for one another? Since it was the closest thing I had at the moment, I shrugged and offered up Cute Chef.

Rachel was pleased. She outlined our strategy (which was basically going to Sushi Planet), and reminded me to walk PAST him then turn and smile.

I suggested a couple of practice runs in the living room, slightly concerned about walking in one direction and looking another, but she nixed that, although she did offer to illustrate at the restaurant by going first. 

At the hostess station I nervously chomped seven after dinner mints while the girl perused the seating chart. “We’ll sit at the bar,” Rachel said. “Maybe at the end?” I stuffed a second fistful of mints in my mouth then spied Cute Chef, who glanced up and smiled. I stopped chewing and scowled back, in a clever attempt to throw him off the track and save the good stuff for later. 

“What ARE you doing?” Rachel asked, but before I could explain, she swanned off. Gracefully she followed the hostess the length of the bar, smiling at the many approving glances tossed her way. HER feet obediently walked straight although she glanced over her shoulder several times.

The long white floor unfolded before me like a horrid slippery plank, and the fashionable tile and concrete room was bright with noise. I took a step and didn’t fall down, so I took a couple more. Still all good. Encouraged, I galloped three steps forward then remembered the protocol. Oops. I stopped, rebooted, then slinked forward. No one was looking at me, so that was good. (But wait! They’re supposed to look.) I cleared my throat loudly, to catch a few eyes, but no one looked up. Coughing loudly worked, however, in fact so successfully that a pimpled busboy, apparently concerned for his health, took a long cut to the kitchen by actually leaving the restaurant and going through the alley. Several diners shielded their food.

A couple more steps and I’d be past the hostess station, the bowl of mints and squarely in open water. My self confidence, usually tucked in a corner with a good book, sat up, ears pricked. I was getting the hang of this! Every molecule in my body was dancing; my arms and legs were as synchronized as a swimmer’s limbs. For the first time in my life all systems appeared to be on line and functioning smoothly, rather than fighting for individuation. This is what it meant to be completely and utterly alive!

Third step. I saw Rachel giving me the sign: Now! Like a carelessly blossoming flower, I took my eyes off my feet, half turned and flashed Cute Chef a forced and toothy grin. He smiled back at me just as my left foot, drunk with power and newly unsupervised, caught the stack of metal and wood chairs behind the hostess station and sent them crashing to the floor. Some fell straight down and stayed politely there, but several of them took the opportunity to scrape, screeching loudly, to a halt several feet away. I glanced furtively around. Well, Rachel’s tutelage was successful on one level. I definitely had everyone’s attention. Out of the corner of my sheepish eyes I saw Rachel sidling out the back.

Later, as we were in line at the grocery store—I mean, that incident called for SERIOUS cookie therapy—we caught sight of a big magazine display: GQ, Men’s Fitness, Vogue, and more. “Oh my god,” I said, spying an especially appealing cover. We both rushed forward and snatched a magazine from the rack. I thumbed excitedly through my copy, and Rachel hers, when she had an epiphany. She looked up from her shirtless Johnny Depp, and pushed up the cover of my magazine to reveal a hot and steamy full color completely nude picture of a bowl of beef noodle pho. I don’t know if it’s possible to sprain one’s eyeballs from rolling them too hard, but Rachel was in serious danger of that for a moment. Needless to say, the flirting lessons were deemed useless and stopped after that night. 

I Gotta Be Me! I Just Gotta Be Me!

A long time ago in Guitar Center (yes, I shopped there, wipe that horrified expression off your face) I heard on the overheads what sounded like a Paul Simon tune. It was so far back in my consciousness as I plinked keyboards and examined cables and hefted mic stands that by the time it had picked its way to the front row of my brain the song was nearly over. “Hey,” I thought aloud to the bored cashier.  “Is this Paul Simon?”  

I liked it too. It’s not exactly what he brought to the table with his Simon and Garfunkel stuff, and certainly not what he brought with Graceland or Rhythm of the Saints, but there was something, some flavor, some clearness that caught me.

Lately my struggle has been with understanding my place in the musical universe.  What am I really saying? Does it matter? Is anyone listening? I’d started thinking that real music was wrung out of bearded young guitar players pouring out their spirits into tin cups on dirty sidewalks. Struggle equals depth. Starving equals raw beauty.

As I listened to Mr. Simon explain the differences in the way a life is lived, based on choices--so beautiful, or so what--I began to understand what this life of music has made of me. There have been times when music has held the place of honor at the table, and others when it’s been relegated to the junk drawer, tarnishing slowly until unearthed once more in a random spring clean. Always present though. Always percolating somewhere, doing something, growing perhaps sideways, in dimensions I couldn’t see or feel until I actually pulled a song out and sang it, cold after so many years, yet possessing a new layer that I didn’t remember adding.

Those young musical creatures. Geniuses, and something like pasta primavera. They sing with a pop and a sizzle that comes from the very young. It isn’t something you hold onto forever. You don’t really want or need to. It’s just a thing that comes with youth, like the ability to get drunk and pop up out of bed next day, fully refreshed, after only two hours of sleep. It’s fine while it’s there, it adds a flavor, and then something else comes along to replace it.  

Me, I sing from years of just plain singing. From feeling the river of sound travel through my body. From the feel of my hands moving across the keys while floating my voice over it.  From getting my ass kicked musically by life. From forcing myself to be brave enough to sing in front of people who weren’t listening, and, sometimes worse, those who were.  Going from that hot flushed feeling when you hit a bad note to more of a “huh. sour note. now it’s gone” feeling. From raising a child while simultaneously trying to keep all my other channels open. I try to write the stories that come from what I have learned, from the other side of each decade as it comes, unbidden and unwanted, but now at least not feared. They have a different flavor than the songs of my spring chicken fevered youthiness. They’re just ... different. Not better. Not worse. Trying to tell the truth, rather than be cute. So many more things to think about than broken hearts.  Trying to see what really is there. It parallels what is happening in my life. An acceptance of myself, of the world, of music. Less self rebuke.  

In energy class there were three ways of running energy: pull, push, and allow. That’s self explanatory, right? Allowing seemed to be the most used, and perhaps the most important. Just standing there. Allowing. Breathing. Not reaching or forcing, but just being.    

Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson I have learned, and somehow have to re-learn on nearly a daily basis. Just stand. Just be. Open your mouth and let the song fall out. There’s no other you, and no matter how hard you try you can’t be someone else. It just doesn’t work.

Martha Graham said it so beautifully: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.”

And so I keep learning the lesson. Be me. Be me. Just inhabit my skin, and be me. It’s how we all came in, as babies, until we learn manners and social acceptance and how to conform. That’s fine, until the day we reach the point where we just can’t do it anymore and our true fiery selves come bursting out of the protective covering we’ve so carefully constructed. Yeah. That day. That’s a really good day.

The Maryland Metamorphosis

Growing up in Maryland, we were plagued by big black water bugs. Shiny and slow, they ambled away from sudden light and scurried under refrigerators and stoves. They were so gross. One year they got so bad that all the neighbors were taking extreme measures to eliminate them. This including spraying, wrangling, roping, and of course the cheapest but crunchiest method, foot stamping. This sometimes happened inadvertently at night while stumbling, barefoot and blind, to the bathroom. The resulting skid and accompanying scream successfully woke the community for blocks around and led my father to join the fight and buy a bug bomb.

We all went to Hechinger where my sister and I were delighted to receive a chunk of 2x4 each. This is before home improvement stores got smart and installed candy aisles. (I'm not kidding. We got chunks of wood and nails and we were ECSTATIC.) While my father set the bomb, guaranteed to kill any insect within hailing distance, we industriously hammered the nails to our bits of lumber. Once the fogger was going full blast we were all herded out of the house. But when we returned home after the prescribed four hours the smell still loitered, and seemed worse in the bedrooms. It was so strong that we couldn’t sleep, so my father dragged our mattresses out into the living room, opened all the windows and set up a fan.

This seemed like an adventure to us. (Before you judge our pathetic joy, remember, this is before God invented the internet, cell phones, and cable. All he’d given us at this point was electricity and the wheel. A lucky few also received scraps of wood and nails.) We excitedly climbed under the covers, the scent of bug fog still drifting lightly around like some Arabian Nights dream. Gentle sleep descended.

The summer sun woke us, as usual, at the crack of daybreak. I rubbed my eyes and yawned as my sister threw off her covers. There was a short, electric pause and then her screams yanked me out of my sleepy bliss. Her entire small body was outlined in bugs, who’d crawled into the warmth of her bed to die. I pulled off my sheet to discover my own fan club, cuddled right up next to me. Lying on their backs, legs in the air, some still feebly kicking. I added a high soprano harmony part to my sister’s screeches. 

My dad was, of course, the first responder. He came blasting into the room (my mother a close second), assessed the situation and grabbed us each by the front of the shirts then airlifted us straight up out of the beds. I can’t even remember what happened next. My memory, clearly so good at recounting the hideous details, somehow stops short of recalling the extra ice cream, chocolate bars and perhaps even trip to the toy store with which we were most likely comforted. At least that’s how I’m going to remember it.

Full Moon and Yoga Grump

It’s five ten. I scan the yoga schedule at the local studio and realize I can make the new five-thirty class. Ahh. I envision my body gracefully flowing from pose to pose, exuding serenity and compassion. Good plan.

Thirty five hot sweaty minutes later:  I am in down dog, searching for my inner smile but only finding my inner snarl. “Why?” I ask the air, lifting my right leg as requested and feeling sweat slide from my upper lip into my left nostril. The instructor floats around the room, lilting instructions. My arms and standing leg trembling, I attempt to ease my breathing as suggested, inhaling slowly and exhaling even more slowly. My lungs, fearing deprivation, decide of their own accord to take approximately seven breaths to every one of the instructor’s. “If you are too identified with the discomfort in your body, try to be something else,” the instructor says soothingly. “Be the floor.  Be the ceiling.  Be the air.” I try to be the air, but the image of a giant Toblerone bar rushes into my head and makes short work of that. 

Desperately I force my mind back into the sauna of a room. Serenity now, goddammit, I yell internally. Now we are holding horse, thighs screaming, butts quaking. The instructor drifts through the room, high on yoga. Has she forgotten us? I wonder as she gently adjusts another student, spending at least twenty seven minutes or so speaking softly as she lifts an elbow, runs a finger down a spine to illustrate proper posture. My body suddenly and incomprehensibly chooses this moment to activate every single sweat gland it owns. A furtive glance around the room reveals glowing yogic faces, nary a drop of dew on any. My body, embarrassed, heroically sweats even more and then threatens to fart. Good lord.  

Now we are in frog, now pigeon. Holding each pose, my mind begins to relax its grip on societal norm. It takes nearly the whole class, but I finally feel my thoughts unclench and my body evolve from a fist to an open palmed flower. By the time we get to sivasana I’m all wrung out, peaceful, and ready for pizza. Ya. Got my yoga on.

We Have Always Lived In A Palace (apologies to Shirley Jackson)

Entry One.

It’s been a long journey, and after the long march we were weary, but we have finally begun to create the new palace. Because there are so many of us, we project the building to be completed in seven days. (That may be a little optimistic, but we'll see.) We're all still a bit depressed that the gods allowed the Great Natural Flood to ruin our old palace, but I'm trying to find the silver lining. So far no luck. One thing is certain though, we’ll sleep well tonight. 

Entry Two. 

The work continues to progress. I met a new guy, Shala, and he has some interesting (translation: crazy) conspiracy theories. He believes in alien life, and even thinks that we’re not alone on this planet. Rubbish! I’ve lived long enough to know a nutter when I hear one. 

Entry Three.

Shala is starting a meet up. Some of the younger guys find him fascinating and try to get work shifts in his section so they can listen to his rants. I kind of thought he was cool too at first but his tone has changed somewhat. Now he’s such a Debbie Downer. The end of the world, natural disasters, we’re all going to die, blah, blah, blah. He’s so obsessed with these imagined scenarios that he barely does his share. 

Entry Four.

Jeez! Shala continues to do little but wax poetic about dumb shit. I’ve spoken to the foreman about it but he seems immune to nonsensical spouting and refuses to take action. Whatever. It’s starting to get hot, too. We need to get this palace built, and fast. I hope I get my own room so I don’t have to listen to Shala anymore.

Entry Five.

One of the scouts discovered an amazing food source. It was just laid out for us like a picnic. We rushed the site and took all that we could carry, although once we were discovered several of our party were murdered in cold blood. (Shala was not among them.) The rest of us managed to get away with a good deal of supplies, and we’ll return under cover of darkness to retrieve our fallen comrades, and perhaps steal more. The only thing keeping our spirits up is that we finally sleep under a solid roof tonight and we have tons of food for our upcoming Summer Banquet. 

Entry Six.

The palace is nearly complete now and it’s GORGEOUS! I’m not sure why we chose brown again, but the slope of the walls is breathtaking. Much nicer than the old digs. There are those who preferred the old pre-flood palace but I think this one is so much better. Updated, modern. Clean lines. I don’t think I get my own room, though. :( 

Entry Seven.

Everyone seems to have gone off Shala, including the younger guys who thought he was so cool. I kind of feel sorry for him. He just works alone most shifts, but still spouts his theories to any hapless listener. BUT the palace is finally done! We finished right on schedule.

Entry Eight.

Today, just as we were putting the finishing touches on the celebratory banquet table, Shala rushed in, breathless, claiming he saw an alien. He screamed that it was heading towards us, but everyone ignored him. He’s always hearing things. I started carrying out some trash and to my dismay noticed two flat long red and gray spaceships bouncing off the ground one at a time, moving directly towards the palace. Shala was right! I sounded the alarm and we all rushed for cover. From our hiding places we watched in horror as one spaceship landed directly on the roof, decimating the beautiful lines, the sloping eaves, the banquet hall. The second spaceship landed next, crushing whatever was still standing. Heartbroken, I dug deeper into the foliage. Someone was wailing nearby and I sidled up to him, glad for the company, but to my annoyance, it was Shala. We cowered together, wondering what had happened to everyone else. I heard a loud rumbling sound coming from the spaceships, and a higher pitched one after that. For a moment it actually sounded like they were conversing. Shit, I thought. We’re going to have to move again.

Loud Rumbling Sound: Ma! There’s an anthill here! I’m stomping it.

Higher Pitched Sound: James Christopher Anthony Muriel Hopkins! You get away from that dirty anthill. I just bought you those sneakers and I will not have them ruined. 

MIRIAM AND HARRIET REDECORATE (a micro play in one act)

Setting: An I Dream Of Jeannie style living space. The room is beautifully furnished in a moroccan style. Velvety couches and throw pillows for miles. Patterned walls and soft lighting. French music is softly playing. Harriet is draped listlessly across a purple couch. Miriam enters.

MIRIAM

Whatever is the matter, dear?

HARRIET

(Moodily) Oh, you know, ever since she got into her early forties it’s felt like there’s just nothing left to do. She’s reached her full height, her BMI is at a workable 20.5, and her hair is lustrous and full. 

MIRIAM 

We did a great job with her, didn’t we? 

HARRIET

Yes, but it seems as though we’re not needed anymore! I’m young! I’m creative. I’m full of brilliant ideas and have no way to execute them. To quote Toni Morrison, I’m an artist without a medium. Nothing to do but eat ice cream and get fat.

MIRIAM

Come now. Surely we can think of better things to do. She’s beautiful, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean she’s finished.

HARRIET

What do you mean?

MIRIAM

Well, now that the structural engineering is done, the fun starts! We can start thinking outside of the box.

HARRIET

You mean like … redecorating?

[Miriam pulls out a giant cardboard box from behind the couch.] 

MIRIAM

I’ve been collecting these over the years. Christmas is right around the corner, what say we put some of these decorations up?

HARRIET

(Claps her hands joyfully and starts digging in the container). Oh, an anomaly! Where shall we put this? I was just in the eastern hemisphere and noticed a little bare patch; that might work. 

MIRIAM

This little tusk will go nicely at the heel. There’s so much wear and tear in the area perhaps it will shore things up a bit.

[They work busily, pulling out various treasures, exclaiming over them, then running from the room to place each item.]

HARRIET

I think a little more shrubbery on the philtrum? Where can I get some?

MIRIAM

Try the upper ocular ridge; there’s plenty there. In fact take it all.

HARRIET

There’s a small tangle in the left vestibular that needed sprucing up, so I hung tinsel and draped the ends out the window. This extra areola looked smashing on the right wall, but this teratoma is just a little too plain, don’t you think? 

MIRIAM

Well, we could festoon it with a sprinkle of hair and a chipped tooth. That’s what my grandmother always did and it was hugely popular; in fact, many of her creations became part of traveling exhibits—did I ever tell you that?

HARRIET

Only thirty-seven times. [Turns the box upside down.] Hey, that’s everything. [Both stand with hands on hips and survey their handiwork.] Now THAT’S what I call beautifully decorated. Wait till she wakes up. She’s going to be thrilled!

[Camera zooms outward, out, out, out, to reveal a stretching, yawning forty-something woman. She crawls out of bed and screams when she discovers a tooth sprouting from her heel, she has a fine new mustache, there is now a third nipple on her hip and her eyebrows are gone.]

END

Reversal of Fortune

A few years ago I booked a summertime party with my trio, at a swanky beautiful Park Hill Home. The backyard was a modern concrete multileveled wonder, with a long thin swimming pool, carefully covered with a tarp to discourage cannonballs. 

After telling the client that no, we could not haul our gear up to the balcony level using the ornate metal staircase, and no, we would not set up on a raft in the pool, we settled on a location near the patio door, tucked into the corner of the brick porch. Naturally, it being summer, I wore giant platform sandals and my entire focus whenever we broke was NOT FALLING DOWN. I teetered into the bathroom on break, but I Did Not Fall Down. We were offered party food (sushi), and I did not gallop to the table, which have inevitably meant falling sideways, then Down. I didn’t trip on the nest of cables surrounding the stage. I didn’t turn an ankle as I smiled and extended a hand to a guest. Not one bandmate sprayed food while talking. The music didn’t suck. We got compliments. We ran out of business cards. It was a great night, and I Didn’t Fall Down.

At the end of the evening I switched to my load out dress (in the car, because the bathroom was occupied) and realized I’d neglected to bring a pair of flats, so I had to break down the Bose tower and load the keyboard, stands, and bench in my giant shoes. I took fewer pieces and made more trips, and I Didn’t F. D. After the car was packed I returned to the courtyard, thanked the client like a grown up, joked a little with some guests, and paid the band. I even drove my stick shift home wearing those beasts. 

Still marveling in the afterglow of that perfect night, I clomped into the house and kicked off my heels, then caught sight of myself in the full length mirror. The shimmer of well being, the rosy glow of a job well done, and pride at impersonating a real live grown up all simultaneously cracked heads and shattered like poorly formed ice under a Zamboni. I looked behind me in the mirror to be sure, but yes it was true. My dress was inside out.

Poncho

One morning in fourth grade my classmate Lisa Mansfield sashayed in wearing a poncho. I’d never seen one before and marveled at it. Was it a scarf? Was it a sweater? On top of being an engineering miracle, it swung to her hips, was adorned with buttons and fringe and even had two slits for her hands. It was the color of buttermilk. With every swing of her pom poms Lisa rose through the ranks, and by day’s end she was in mortal danger of social ascension.

I rushed home and demanded a poncho of my own, knowing full well the futility of such a request. Ours was a purely functional situation. Gifts were dispensed at birthdays and Christmas, and other than those two days any swag received came from those who didn’t know any better (aunts or uncles who did not know the rules) or our own tiny allowances. My lack of financial savvy never allowed me to save up for anything larger than a pack of Bazooka.

Even while asking, in the space before my mother’s eyebrows went up, there wasn’t any real hope in it. I didn’t even wait for the “no” but simply bleated my futile request, more as a matter of formality than anything, and retreated to my shared bedroom.

Amongst other immigrant traits (including photographing every new piece of luggage) the knack for sewing had followed my mother into the new country like a cold virus and inflicted its results on us. She collected Butterick and McCall patterns and showed them to us. “Aren’t they nice?” she asked, but the question was purely rhetorical. We knew that shortly there would mysteriously appear from the fabric pinned to the tissue two new dresses, the wearing of which would set us further back on the school social hierarchy. And there was nothing we could do about it. We walked the earth like the scary hallway twins from “The Shining”, except we weren’t scary at all. We didn’t even have that going for us. 

Now I listlessly began to pick at the laundry I had been tasked to fold in my bedroom, when suddenly I brightened. Pulling a homemade dirndl skirt from the pile I inspected it. Elastic waist, not too long. Yes, it would do.

I called out that I was going to the playground across the street and before the answering query regarding chores could come I skipped out and headed for the swings. I slipped the skirt over my head, allowing the elastic waist to bunch loosely around my throat (it was a fall print, with little leaves on it and no pom poms, but you take what  you can get) and arranged it neatly around my shoulders. I thought I looked pretty damn good.

There were two other girls on the playground. I walked right up to them and planted myself in an adjoining swing. They both stopped talking and stared. “Hi,” I said lightly, walking my feet backwards to initiate the first swoop. I let my feet go and started pumping to gain momentum. 

“Why are you wearing a skirt around your neck?” asked one of the girls. I laughed carelessly. 

“It’s not a skirt, it’s a poncho!” I, said importantly, pumping harder. They looked at each other and one girl mouthed “SKIRT.”

“It’s a poncho!” I insisted. “My mother made it for me, that’s why it looks a little different.” I stopped swinging so I could list its features. “See? It has pockets.” I awkwardly snaked my hands up from beneath the hem and parked them jauntily in the inset pockets, which were unfortunately located directly below my neck. The two girls rolled their eyes and moved away to the jungle gym. I swung a little more then decided to chalk it up as a failed experiment and went home. 

Lisa wore her poncho a few more times to school but a couple of weeks later Shelley Cobham came in with white go-go boots and that was the end of the poncho craze. Side note: go-go boots are much harder to replicate at home. Suffice it to say that the tin foil did not go over big with the girls on the playground. 

I housed a country 

In the cliffs of my clouded bones

My strength was coined in a thousand 

              pounding

                    doubts

Vines and roses cosseted imagined grace 

A mockery of peace

Yes, I will stay.

Till today, when you broke the glass 

I cornered my eyes at the splinter of sharp sky

You bled the doors open, unfurling my breath

Look, you said.

Look.

Just look.

And I stumbled, starry and broken, out of this night

oh
          
                    light

Sprinkler

A perfect summer day in Takoma Park: huge lazy bumble bees droning over the flowers, the humidity heavy as porridge and the backyard peppered with a million buttercups.

My dad was dressed to the nines watering the flowers along the back fence, his back to me. I was horsing around in my bathing suit with the hose, spraying dandelion puffs into oblivion and generally just making a mess. 

“Dad!” I called, waving the sprinkler around teasingly as he bent over, presenting a perfect target. He straightened up and saw me. Out came the admonishing finger.

“Don’t you do it,” he wagged at me. “This is a new suit.”

“I’m not,” I whined. “I was just pretending.”

I turned away sullenly and drenched an entire planet of clover, grabbed a handful and tasted them. Not as good as the onion grass. I yanked a blade out and gnawed on it, the hose dribbling into the earth. 

The sun and humidity increased their conversation, several bees joined in, and the sleepiness factor of the afternoon jumped by a good sixty percent. I heard the broken song of the ice cream truck a few blocks away. Kids shouted on the basketball court in the schoolyard across the street. My father continued to bend temptingly over the flower bed, in his perfectly pressed dark suit. 

In that moment time slowed down and the universe seemed to expand in slow motion. I could see molecules and light and sound, but as though I was in a neighboring galaxy, everything seemed far away. I floated above my body and watched as a graceful perfect arch of water sprayed over the afternoon light. Rainbows glistened in its curve. Wildflowers bobbed their heads in encouragement. Clouds of butterflies circled above me, and somewhere in the distance a meadow lark sang, but its dreamy song seemed to be eclipsed by some sort of snorting. My consciousness slammed back into my body and my brain noted with interest that my father had spun on his heels to glare at me, clouds of steam issuing from his ears and a broad wet patch slowly inking its way across his new suit. I looked down. The smoking hose hung from my sweaty hand.

As my father began his charge, time snapped back online and shouted to self preservation, which sprinted back into the game and urged me to become ambulatory, the sooner the better. I took its advice, dropped the hose and ran.

Past the side of the house, out onto the sidewalk I raced, my nine year old pace effortlessly outstripping that of my angered father’s. Running came effortlessly to me then. My breath in my ears, my heart chugging, I noisily flew, knowing I could do this forever. My father was falling behind, but his yelling was still close enough to spur me on.

In the midst of this merriment, a simple epiphany revealed itself: I’m nine! Where the hell am I supposed to go? This sudden, heavy truth slowed my steps and I allowed myself to be caught and bundled back to the porch steps to receive my paddling. 

Fear opened my lungs, eliminating the need for vocal warmups. I let out a perfectly swooping preparatory yell as my father launched into the first few smacks, but stopped, surprised, in the middle of the next wail. The truth is that my inch thick red white and blue bathing suit had become so waterlogged that it was like I was wearing a hazmat suit made entirely of bubble wrap. My father’s disciplinary action felt as light to me as a butterfly making a three point landing on my backside. Hard on this heels came the realization that this information, joyful though it made me, would not please my father. 

Self preservation, suddenly free with the advice, urged me to turn on the siren in an attempt to divert suspicion, which I gladly did, false though it sounded to my ears. I tore the air with Oscar worthy wails. They were so believable that my father, usually so hell bent on not sparing the rod, let me off easy after two or three thumps. I launched myself into the kitchen, subtly poking myself in the eye to generate tears and perpetuate the fiction. My mother, turned from the stove and gathered me up in her arms, then tucked me into a kitchen chair with a warm peanut buttered chapati. I was unsure of how long to cry, so decided to fake weep for about three or four bites, whereupon I would pretend to lose myself in the yumminess of the food. That was my first ever production decision. It was a good one. My father stormed in to the house to change from his ruined suit, then joined us at the kitchen table and said grace, blessing the food, our family and friends, and the world in general, but neglecting to pray for the sins of his eldest daughter, which I took as a sign that forgiveness, or at the very least, leniency, had already been granted.  

The Power of the Glori

Mark Spitz took home seven golds under the shadow of the Munich massacre. The World Trade Centers, their two peace fingers bisecting the clogged Manhattan sky, were proudly unveiled. Nixon went to China. In the universe according to grade school girls, however, the headline news was the emergence of a line of Barbie doll knock offs, known as Topper Dawn Dolls. As my parents murmured to each other in the kitchen about rising gas prices, my sister and I held long conferences detailing the virtues of each doll. Dawn was the line’s namesake, leading the league of ridiculously proportioned supermodel miniatures. The dolls were a perfect size: large enough to hold their own in a toy box filled with big bald baby dolls, but small enough to tuck into a school bag with a PBJ. Both came to the table dressed in full drag queen glamor, replete with tiny rubbery heels and plastic chunks of handbag; both had numerous fashion accessories (sold separately), but only Glori had a thick hedge of bangs that nearly tangoed with her spidery lashes. She had red hair. She had a side part. I wanted her.

As Christmas drew near, the number of presents beneath the tree mounted, and my sister and I began our annual ritual of snooping around the tree, stacking, tallying and cataloging. When caught and questioned, we informed our suspicious parents that we were “arranging” them, a thinly veiled ruse that was nevertheless an extremely important pre-Christmas activity, for otherwise how else could we know which of us our parents loved best, and by extension, exactly how upset to get on Christmas morning? My parents wisely countered this competitive streak by purchasing identical gifts for each of us, simply varying in color or type, but never in size or amount. 

Around this particular Christmas Eve our television set broke, and my father in his infinite wisdom (or more likely immigrant cheapness) chose not to repair it. The oscillating lights of the tree were a crappy yet acceptable substitute for our TV starved brains, and the endless hours freed up by no longer having to keep abreast of Fred, Wilma, Ginger, Maryann and the whole Brady Bunch allowed us many more hours of haunting the tree. We sorted and shook the gifts until my sister triumphantly held up a package that had been poorly taped by our sleep deprived father. Carefully she weaseled the edges apart to discover (oh, happy day) a Glori doll for me. Locating the identical twin package, we managed to nudge enough of the paper apart to see that the name on the edge of the box started with a “D”, and was clearly the companion Dawn doll. Satisfied, we shoved both boxes to the farthest point under the tree to avert suspicion, brushed teeth, said prayers, and tried to go to sleep.

After what seemed like two weeks, Christmas morning finally arrived. I eagerly tore open my gifts, mentally tallying as I went. Mostly clothes: red checked pants (my sister got blue). Green tennis shoes (my sister’s were yellow). Religiously themed children’s stories. The heap beside me, mostly destined for “accidental” loss in the coming months, grew as I methodically worked through my small pile. My sister worked feverishly beside me, focused, unflinching. Finally I pulled out the compromised gift with a fake cry of “oh, there’s another one back there I think!” and arranged my features into a rictus of joy before ripping into the paper, but alas, when opened, the little plastic coffin held not Glori but the middle parted jaundice haired Dawn. I blinked in shock, then burst into tears and ran for the bedroom, my beliefs in a benevolent God slipping down around me like a too-small bath towel. Apparently all of the “rearranging” had caused several gift tags to fall off, and my father had simply slapped them back onto the packages willy nilly.

After a little light grilling, my sister caved like a philandering televangelist and weepily confessed everything, a character flaw which to this day she mistakes for truthfulness. My father asked her to trade dolls with me but shrewdly sensing a lucrative business opportunity, my sister declined. It was only after he successfully bribed her with a quarter that she relented (though later she pretend not to have received it and got a second payout). In this manner the spirit of Christmas was restored: for me, through the acquisition of my beloved Glori doll, and for my sister, through a newly refined business sense as well as double the asking price.