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a little s.o.c. to amuse me

well well, 30 minutes on the clock and after i’ve spent the first half of my alotted hour browsing around impotently trying to catch up with people who i’d like to call friends. 

let me apologize for not having been around in some time.  i owe you more words that i think i can fit into this time slot (even at 80 wpm).  summer has reached its beautiful conclusion and the children are off into the capable and not-so-capable hands of the public school system.  and me with permission to spend a little time for myself.  its too much.

i’ve still been writing, very much so, in my little black mead with my old fashioned ball point pen.  and those are the best writings, when i can put my heart and soul into it and write about the things i really care about, the things that really matter.  the personal stuff.

i haven’t lost my touch for this medium, just my heart.  and when my host lets me linger on gratis…there must be something i can say.  ah, a summer well spent, bowling; roller skating, beaching, video arcading and movie watching with my two favorite people in this world.

ah hell, i miss them already (barely 2 hours later…).  what will i do with myself now?  oh yeah, primarily, i’d like to find a way to make some money.  all this freelance whiteout artistry hasn’t paid off the way i wouldv’e hoped, nope, i must seek out gainful employment again.  probably back to transcription from the comfort of my own home, because i know enough about myself to say that i couldn’t bear to work for anyone else again, ever.  i’ve been a drifter from birth.

born survivor, i usually work alone.

“Ain’t a cryin shame to eat it warm either”, i remind them, setting out the mustard based potato salad.  A time tested generational recipe (one of the few I have possession of) that I could definitely prepare in my sleep.

“What’s in it?” asks a shameless child from the table. 

“mustard, mayo, a half dozen eggs, pickles onion and relish”. 

She sniffs at the mention of pickles, and perhaps decides against it.  I feel the compulsion to qualify the mayo as Hellman’s/Best Foods (I’m not a savage you know) since hearing Tom Robbins read his own piece about a tomato sandwich, a la wonder bread (justifying himself on that choice); but resist explaining myself any further.  Much like my philosophy in every other aspect of life, I say you can take or leave my potato salad (all the sadder for you if the latter be your choice…) and I care not.

My nephew rounds the corner just in time and I exercise my auntie rights by video’ing and snapping as many pictures as possible with my new little LG (look at me, one foot in the twenty first century!)  He is at that wonderful age, just short of Two, cruising about unaided and showing a distinct personality with every smile.  He is fluent in sign language apparently, and has limited his speaking to ‘doody’ I gather from our rather short encounter.  Of course, I disagree with the sign language thing (knowing well what smart and consequently lazy creatures children can be) having had it pushed on me much by therapizers past. 

It is father’s day.  I’ve hand written a love letter to my husband, reminiscent of our teenage years passing notes in senior english class.  A few steps away looms my 34th birthday (now just a few days…argh) and I stop to remind myself that it means little, and there is scant justification for my annual agonizing over the day due to the contentedness that radiates through me.  I’m happy with myself, from my outlook on life to my reflection in the mirror.  Though the schaudenfreude that’s brought me to this conclusion is shameful-  the things that we’ve witnessed friends and acquaintances have been doing to each other lately; marriages of 15 and 25 years seemingly disintegrating over night, people drinking themselves into the hospital, snorting themselves into living out of their cars, pimping themselves into abandoning this beautiful state and chasing cross country pipe dreams.  Ack, at first I fear the despair may be catching, but moreso it makes me feel successful, to be where I am and who I am, to know that I’m living a high life (despite daily shortages of nothing more important than money) and feeling quite comfortable in my own skin.  Other slightly more innocuous events have contributed:  a 1200 mile car trip for the memorial service of a great-grandfather, expected but nonetheless heart wrenching (I did not know this amazing man as well as I would have liked to yet mourned him via my husband’s heartbreak).  And more recently a day of shared work, laboring next to my love and relishing every minute of it, breaking a much needed (and very rare) sweat in the process. 

We stop to admire a passing breeze through the trees, “Where else could a husband and wife work side by side all day?” and I correct him with “What other husband and wife could work side by side all day?” I am a lucky woman and he is my best friend.  Still.

 

feelin near as faded as my jeans…

of course, that was a passing line clipped from janis joplin.  at passing glance you might’ve thought i was just riding a wave, a ‘zeitgeist’ from someone else, but seems it was just passing through our heads at the same time at different ends of the world.  with a voice that drips female sexuality so thickly and powerfully from every song; i was really just trying to understand ‘Get It While You Can’ (another tune of hers…):  while i’m all over ‘me and bobby mcgee’, ‘down on me’, ‘ball and chain’, ‘summertime’, ‘move over’, etcetera, i just can’t feel it here.  the 70’s must’ve been great, or i must not be the love child i’ve made myself out as, because on this one simple idea, me and janis, we just can’t agree. 

inspired by boot’s quoting out of context:

“Another close call,” said Serge, feeling his neck.  “I think God is trying to tell me something.”

“Like what?”

“I think I’m going to try going straight.”

“You?” Coleman laughed.  “That’s a hoot!”

“We’ve been staying here a few weeks now, and I’ve been watching Jim over there.  Talk about living on the edge.  Guys like him don’t get any glory.  They’ve just quietly put away childish things and faced the relentless adult responsibility of taking care of others.”

Coleman shook with the willies.  “That’s some scary shit!” 

walk with me >> from the pen of boot

Come, take me by the hand, walk with me a while.  We will walk along the path and listen to the cracking of the twigs and the rustle of the hidden things.  We will walk under the heavy bows of trees, their shade a blessed dark and green cloak, shielding us from the sun.  We will walk between the bushes, the leaves brushing against our legs, sometimes scraping, sometimes caressing.  We will walk amongst the flowers, their scented petals crushing under our naked feet, each gentle step releasing the scent of jasmine, the rush of lavender.  We will walk along the winding path, the sun sometimes glinting through, and we will be warm, but then we will be cooled by the moist breeze through the heavy trees.  We will walk and we will talk, but we will not talk of things, we will only talk of not-things, our words babbling like the nearby creek, senselessly and quietly moving along, not thinking, just moving and breathing.  We will walk together, stopping to listen for the chirping of birds or the silence of the forest.  We will walk together and just be.  We will walk until the end, whatever that might be.  Walk with me, inside my heart, my friend.

this weird, wired world >> from the pen of boot

I know when I first read those trail-blazing authors of the Golden Age they made me dizzy with wonder and amazement.  However, I’m not sure I ever completely believed that any of those technological wonders could come true, certainly not when I was around to be a part of it. 

Oh, I wished it would come true.  Wished so hard that it hurt.  Stared at the sky and imagined the impossible and the unlikely, wished until the stars began to blur. 

I make fun of the things that didn’t eventuate, as have and do others - “where are all the flying cars?” ... “why don’t I have my own personal jet-pack?” ... “when are we going to control the weather already?” - but, in truth, what has eventuated in the ‘future’ is all the more magnificent in its everyday and ordinary way.  The things I see daily, the thing I’m using right now, the stuff I take for granted should leave me breathless and speechless.

There isn’t the right word for it yet, but this real world-wide-web, this community across the miles, spanning loneliness and inspiration, it is the product of everything those authors wished for, imagined and wrote about. 

I salute them all and I am glad I was here to see it.

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