Gotta Have It

Warning:  This entry is rated NC-17.

My thoughts on sex are many and varied, practically schizophrenic (like everything else in my twin Gemini personality).  I can’t even say it’s one of my favorite subjects, it’s so overdone, to the point of stupidity.  Anything a goat can do is not worthy of such constant attention.  So girls have tits!  Woo-woo!  Get over it already.

Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to get naked.  I’m not one of those girls who screams for hours of foreplay.  Ten minutes is really enough, thank you so much.  I know there are also women who have a hot, kicking testosterone stream.  God bless them.

When I was 15 I dated Larry, who was 23.  He was so impressed that he could do it all night.  I was so sure I never wanted to date anyone like him again, anyone who would chafe me raw to prove himself.  I like a guy who’s so excited to see me he comes in his pants.  Now that’s adoration!  No effort involved!

I’m a fan of interesting conversation, something analytical, less sweating and hyperventilating.  I love Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit!  Something that deals with the brain, please.  (And, yes, I know the brain is the most important sexual organ.  It’s just that you need to interest me in another way before I’m going to be thrilled with all your manliness.)

Conversely, I am convinced that sex is the number one element in a relationship.  (There’s the schizo aspect.)

I think the average chick, however, is not sexually obsessed.  Before marriage I was more of a social worker, a Mother Teresa type, giving aid to those with erections.  I started out as an attention seeking people pleaser.  In high school I once did it with a guy named Mike at a drive-in just because his feelings were hurt that I’d let his best friend, also named Mike, slip it in on a previous occasion.  I couldn’t stand the whining and hang dog face.  “Go ahead (heavy sigh).”

I felt like it was unfair that my job was to say “No” to all those boys who seemed utterly bereft and completely desperate.  I still don’t understand why it’s saintly to give food to the hungry, but slutty to give sex to the horny.  WTF?   Men are right out there with their penis doing the begging.  It’s surprising that they don’t draw tears and a sad face on it with a magic marker.

As a little girl I remember imagining that on my wedding night we would sit by a fire and drink hot chocolate while eating popcorn.  I had no idea it was so much more complicated than that. 

When an older family member first told me that all men care about is sex, I really and truly thought she was a fucking idiot.  I was 24 years old and couldn’t believe this old woman was even saying the word “sex” to me.  After all, my own maternal grandmother slept with a Siamese cat wrapped around her neck and the word “pussy” never came up in our conversation.

Today, 23 years later, I realize the old broad was trying to do me a favor by giving me the heads up.

Now when other women tell me things aren’t going well at home, my first question is whether they’re doing it.  The answer is almost always no.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t bode well for the marriage.  I now completely believe that sperm is an icky, sticky paste that holds two people together, another reason to think really hard before doing it with a jackass.

I was just lucky to escape without an idiot super-glued to my ass.

As a married woman, my time performing humanitarian aid in the vast sexual peace corps complete, I lose interest if much time goes by between rides in the saddle.  My vagina is a fan of the extended vacation.  Once the big guy is patted down and put away in the stall, I’m not thinking about him any longer.  Hubby’s horse could die of thirst & hunger while I’m reading a good book, completely forgetting that I even own a pony.

The flip side is the funky biological connector that goes missing without sex.  It’s a hormonal combination lock that alters my “Bitchy” and his “Fucker.”  If either one of those two alternate personalities is allowed to rule the roost for long, we’re in trouble.  And of course the reality is that once you get started it’s fun!  “Why don’t we do this more often?!”  This stated as my husband beats his head bloody against the headboard.

Suddenly I’m in love again and his mind is on mowing the lawn.

The truth is that women need sex as much as men.  I occasionally need to be put in my place on a biological level.  I don’t feel a connection to him when we’re not regularly getting connected.  There is a caveman thing that is still in play.  I’ve suggested to my husband that he just say, “Shut the fuck up and blow me.”  He’s way too urbane and mannerly.  And, truth be told, I’d probably bite his dick if he did this.

There is a need for constant give and take.  My husband will not do laundry, wash dishes or fix dinner if his balls are turning blue.

Several of my friends & acquaintances have grown tired of their husbands, married life & the inherent sexual expectations.  While living in lovely homes, raising beautiful children, their men somehow became more annoying than interesting.  Of course, I think that happens to everyone occasionally.  It just seems like a special situation, when it is not.

Once divorced, instead of five minutes in the sack it’s an 8-hour shift on your feet.  Instead of doing a husband in the bedrooom, it’s serving drinks to strangers in a bar or eating shit from a boss (just a different type of servitude).  The children move from house to house & the shocking truth sets in: you will remain co-parents for the rest of your life.  There is no escape.

Eventually an on-line profile is prepared.   Shockingly, you discover what men on the internet want most of all!  Sex, of course.  Now divorced, working a job or two, living as a single parent, there are very few decent guys to date.  No one is perfect enough.

For God’s sake, I’m not interested in taking this alternate route.  And if you say that sounds like I’m equating marriage with prostitution, I’ll agree with you.

All of life is yin & yang.

Several of my friends have small children and blame their lack of any sex life on the kids.  But for the sake of the relationship you cannot say, “We have children and there is no time or privacy.”  If you want your children to have two loving, happy parents, buy a lock.  Let the children cry at the door.  Do the deed.

When I’m feeling like a spiteful bitch, wanting to do pretty much anything in the entire world other than touch my husband’s dick, I try to think again.  There are unwanted results from such posturing.  Bad shit begins to happen.

Did you know that your ass grows exponentially in your husband’s eyes when you stop being kind to his penis?

Dicks actually control all thought, after 12 days without orgasm (some after 7).

Girls who like to eat need to pretend there’s a chili dog in the room.

Girls who love animals need to imagine their dude’s pubic hair is a fluffy baby shih-tzu.

Are you disgusted with me, completely annoyed with this subject?  Then think about this:

Your children standing up at his wedding to the second wife.

His second family, your children’s half-siblings.

You, home alone, while he’s living in his new apartment with a convertible parked out front.

Are you getting horny yet?

I can’t listen to one more woman bitch about how her husband doesn’t do anything around the house, never washes a dish.  When is the last time you tasted some fleshy penis roll-up?  As Dr. Phil says about children, “You must find their currency.”

Don’t even tell me that you don’t give head and then bitch about his rotten moods and nasty attitude.  Because it’s true — sex is all that matters when it comes to the male species.  A recipe for a happy marriage?  Penis on your breath.  It’s that simple.

Say you’ve got a yeast infection plus an impacted wisdom tooth?  Lube up your breasts and make a man sandwich.

You say you’re not in the mood and you shouldn’t have to do such a thing?  You just don’t feel like it, he hasn’t been nice to you lately, you think it’s disgusting and degrading?  If your kids knew that divorce might be looming on the horizon they would save up their quarters to buy you busty lingerie.

You don’t like the taste?  Try a condiment!  Slip some Ben & Jerry’s on that bad boy, make it taste like a caramel sundae.  Or is chocolate your thing?  Powdered cocoa mix, Hershey’s syrup or fudge sauce will do the trick.

There’s something in the female brain that starts out saying ”No,” but halfway through turns into “Yes, yes, yes!”  I wish I knew what the fuck that was about.

Do you enjoy wiping your ass?  Probably not.  But you do it anyway.  In the end you’re so happy it’s sweet-smelling, perfumed and smooth as a baby’s butt. 

Today I told my husband I wish he’d love me even if my vagina were sewn shut, my fingers chopped off and my jaw broken.  He answered my statement with a question: “Was your broken jaw set open or closed?”

Men in a nutshell.

Later this weekend he’s papering our bedroom walls with this entry.  When he points out specific lines I’ve written, I will likely tell him to go fuck himself.

Women in a nutshell.

Those damned goats make it all look so incredibly simple.

Savior Complex . . .

My family of origin would drag me under with them in a tidal wave, not push me to safety if they had the chance.  None of us is immune from this lethal centrifugal force. 

My niece, S., has sucked me back in more during the past two years than anyone in the entire twenty previous.  I think I loved the idea of her, because the reality is so completely disastrous.

Every single time some new drama manifests, I am tempted to step off the safe ship that is my current home and family.  I am drawn to swim with the sharks of my past.

The Boat

My Culinary ADD entry was initiated by a trip to Famous Dave’s BBQ joint last night. 

We probably go to restaurants at least twice a week, but I don’t enjoy it very much lately.  The food seems to get more expensive as the quality lessens.  We’re looking at a bill for $60 and ate chicken strips & french fries for dinner.

This should be the simple definition for “assholes.”

If you’re spending that kind of cash, I feel like you should have a great experience.  Consider these factors, however: I spend all day, every day, with my daughter; my husband only speaks about 1,500 words per week, at least half of those at work.

So their expectation is that I entertain them.  My expectation is that they entertain me.  Sometimes that doesn’t work out so well.  If I bring a book or a newspaper to the table they stare at me, waiting with longing looks for a comment or two.  It’s too pathetic, so I had to stop.

I initiated last night’s topic of conversation by telling my husband about my friend A.’s adopted Haitian son and the ensuing medical issues.  Suffice it to say there are things that have to be taken care of, paperwork and bureaucrazy mostly.

That’s not what my daughter heard.  She began to cry, thinking I could possibly “catch” something from the little guy.  I don’t think she had time to consider that she’s been with him as much as I have!  I may have mentioned that at some point, attempting to increase her hysteria.  I can be really stupid, obviously. 

She’s got tears streaming down her eyes and I’m pissed that dinner is now ruined.  My husband is sighing, since he’s the one who actually pays the bill and has to sit with these two females for nearly ever meal he takes. 

He cannot wrap his head around the fact that anyone could burst into tears at Famous Dave’s, the happy BBQ place.  He cannot believe his wife’s anger quotient can go from 1 to 10 in a heartbeat, when he’s had to deal with the public for 35 years at work.  He could accomplish an arrest, takedown & trip to jail with less angst then I express in a simple mother/daughter conversation.

So I tell my daughter: “You had better be nice to that little boy, because you know what?  If we were in a boat, and the boat began to sink, which one of your little friends do you think I would save first?  Who do you think is my most favorite?”  And she says, “I don’t know.”

And I say, “J.!,” my little Haitian friend.  In your head you must try and imagine me practically spitting across the table, I have such a thing for this kid, his lilting French accent & his giggles.

She looks at me with confusion, partly because she never really listens to every word I say.  Maybe only ever fifth word.  I will admit that I speak too much and so sometimes a filter is necessary.

We leave the restaurant and get into the car.  While traveling home, R. says, “What about Daddy?  I thought you would save Daddy on the boat.”  Her voice is still cracking.

WHAT?

I begin trying to explain that Daddy will never need my saving, that I was only talking about children, not grown-ups.  Of course I would save Daddy or her brother if they needed saving.

The fact that I am a mediocre swimmer, a middle-aged woman with no lifesaving certification, never comes up.

She begins to argue that if I didn’t save Daddy then I should save her friend T. instead.  “Who would save T.?”

I begin to argue back: “T.’s mom would save her.”

My daughter says, “What about S.?” 

Realize that this conversation is all spoken with the utmost seriousness.

We will never, ever be able to take a cruise with these people.

My husband should run for his life.  My daughter will become a teenager at about the same time my ticket for the hot flash train arrives in the mail.  Our conversations are bound to deteriorate from here.

Unwarranted Trust

My lovely girlfriend, A., left her two four-year old boys in my care for about half-an-hour on Wednesday.  It was more difficult than anticipated.

You see, the boys think I am a really big 4-year old girl.  I play with them, I cause trouble, I entice them into doing bad things.  They have followed me into the road on prior occasions.

So why would they expect any different?  They climbed on me, they flipped over my head.  One would not stop giving me very wet, sloppy kisses as the other ran in the opposite direction.

We were in a public place and they were supposed to be quiet.  I think I forgot to mention that.

What A. doesn’t realize is that I have a history.  Unbelievable things have happened in my past, while watching other people’s children.

Ever hear of peanut allergies?  My friend Diane’s daughter, Leah, was born with them.  I had known this fact for most of her life.  Did that stop me from giving her a Nutter-Butter cookie?  No, I’m afraid it did not.  I somehow missed the connection between the two.

We were at school during a PTO function and Leah looked bored.  I wanted to fix it.

Suddenly she was no longer bored and was instead in her mother’s arms running toward the nurse’s office for an epi-pen. 

Fortunately, we both survived.  I’m not sure why Diane didn’t kill me, but she is a very religious person and that may have been a part of my good fortune.

Then we have the courthouse incident.  I was a probation officer and one of the judges was going to have to stop a court hearing because the family’s little boy was unable to be quiet enough for proceedings to continue.  An interpreter was involved and people could not hear one another.

Never one to miss an opportunity to shirk my actual duties, I suggested that I take the little boy into the hallway and occupy his time until the proceedings were finished.

Did I mention the boy was a hemophiliac?

We went for a walk and everything was fine.  We had been together nearly 10 minutes and I was quite pleased with myself, hero of the moment, woman with a super-hero complex.  We turned a corner and he saw the courtroom his parents were in, then took off in a sprint.

After tripping, he fell directly on his little forehead.  A gigantic egg began to form immediately, like the size of a real chicken egg.  He was rushed to the hospital to stop the internal bleeding.

It was horrible.

But maybe not as bad as the incident which occurred with my niece, Samantha.

She was about 3 at the time.  I had never watched my niece and nephew before because we live in different states.  My sister had to go to work and it was an opportunity for me to spend time with them.  Normally they would have been at the babysitter’s house.

Sam had a fever and her father told me, “Don’t let her get too warm.  Seizures run in my family and a high fever can bring one on.”

In my defense, her father is somewhat of a loser alcoholic.  He does not hesitate to use extremely vulgar terms in every day conversation, even in front of the kids.  He is the only person I know who could somehow work the word “cocksucker” into a conversation about homework.  At their wedding rehearsal dinner he actually said, “I could eat the ass end out of a possum,” just as the minister came around the corner.

So I kind of nodded my head and pointed him toward the door.

When Samantha’s little arm began to twitch and she fell out of her mother’s warm, snuggly bed, shaking on the floor in a full-on seizure, I could not believe what was happening.  I picked her up and ran for the phone.

Can you imagine, they did not have a 9-1-1 system?  I had to lay her on the kitchen floor to dial the phone.  She was not breathing.  I did not even know my sister’s address.

Finally, after reaching my brother, I picked Sam up and ran outside.  I was screaming, hoping a neighbor with a car would appear.  Instead what happened was the cold outside air brought her back.  She began to breathe.

(Even as I write this, 20 years later, my eyes fill with tears.)

As my brother, the ambulance and the police car all pulled up in front of the house at the same time, the phone rang.  My sister said, “So, how’s it going?”

Two years ago her son followed me into an ocean riptide.

I’m kind of embarrassed to even publish this entry.

Christmas Letters

I absolutely love Christmas letters. 

A regular card does nothing for me, nothing at all.  I am not interested in canned statements or a signature.  A picture card is an enjoyable step up.  I’ve never been organized enough to plan a Christmas photo in September.  It’s just an impossibility.  I’m fascinated by the number of people who include the family pet. 

But the Christmas letter is unmatched when it comes to giving me a giggle.

I don’t even mind when it’s a bombastic, bragging type of letter: “John is at Harvard, Buffy is engaged, Biff received the biggest bonus for selling house trailers at the company this year.”  This is better than a wrapped gift.  My husband and I can go over it with a fine tooth comb for days, pure pleasure.

But Aunt Ruth is best of all.  She makes no attempt to sugar coat.  She and Uncle Al are in their mid-70′s and they like to travel.  They’ve been lucky health-wise and still get along quite well.  The last time we saw them at a family reunion they were dressed for a Steeler’s game, matching yellow jackets.

Today we received Aunt Ruth’s annual Christmas letter.  She and Al are doing well but they have suffered losses this year.  Her brother died unexpectedly.   A good friend died, too.  Another cousin broke her back and now weighs 88 pounds.  I am shocked by these details in the midst of the usual overdose on merriment!

Amazingly, she then goes on to mention that her son’s wife left him and he’s now living alone in another state.  She hates thinking of him in the big house without his children.

God, I love this woman.  I love her honesty.  I love the way she gets to the nitty-gritty all in a single page.  I love her willingness to tell it like it is and bare it all, never pretending or trying to be something she’s not.

And then after all the news of doom and gloom, we get this: “Good news is the Steelers are having a pretty good year.  With some luck we hope to be in the play-offs.”

The glass is always half full for Aunt Ruth.

P.S.  The Steelers lost in the last minute of play last night, their final game of the season.  I’m very concerned.  Will this be the straw that breaks Aunt Ruth’s back?

My First Request Blog!

We have a request from a visitor named Jay, regarding the 101 Things About Me (Part Two) posting!

“’68. I love playing practical jokes. 69. Once the police were called to one of the practical joke scenes I was involved in. It was bad.’

This deserves a post of it own!!”

So, Jay, this post is for you.

I went to college in a place that was rather unbelievably named “Normal, IL.”  By the time senior year rolled around it was getting boring, living in Normal.  My best friend Linda, a lesbian, was living with her lover Cindy and friend Jeff.  I met Linda and Jeff while working in a runaway home, we all worked there.

Linda, being my first and best lesbian friend, was the most fascinating single individual ever to come across my path.  This little town I grew up in might have had homosexuals, but they didn’t tell anybody about it.  When Linda told me she was gay it was like discovering my best friend was a martian. 

By God, I had to know every single thing about the martian culture.  It was my duty to investigate.  I would guess that I asked her somewhere in the realm of 3,000 questions about how women have sex together, what they do, why they do it, what it’s like, etc.  Another subject certainly worthy of its own entry.

Scatalogical Family Tree

 

My grandfather was obsessed with bowel movements.  When we were children he would push hard on our stomachs and ask if we had pooped that day.  I would giggle and think he was so weird.

These were the same grandparents who insisted we leave the door open when going to the bathroom, which I am relatively comfortable with doing to this day.  The other side of the family, my father’s, were appalled when we would forget to close the door.

Today I understand the poop obsession.  The blogosphere is full of people trying to lose that impacted feces sitting in their numerous colons.

My husband and I are on opposite sides of the open door policy.  He would no more slice his wrist than pee with an open door.  I try to accommodate him as much as possible.

Fiber!  We need more fiber in our lives!  Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot.

My family of origin was very gassy.  I was a prude.  I hated that they farted all the time.  My mother and brother, especially, could have performed in a circus.  Last time I visited my mother in Florida she passed gas at the table.  We were dining at a ginormous all-you-can-eat buffet.  Mother’s fart snuck up on me like poison and I began to gag.  I am so glad my husband was not seated across from Mom.  His family did not prepare him to deal with this type of thing.

I still have the sense of humor that most 8-year old boys have regarding all of this.  Scatalogical, I believe it’s called.  I convinced my brother to pretend he was farting in the elevator ascending to the top of the Empire State Building, packed with unknowing victims.  I nearly peed myself as Jim began to moan and grunt.  Everyone tensed and continued looking forward; tears began to stream down my face as I attempted to hold in my hysteria.

I am also a major fan of the wet wipe.  How did the world exist without it?

BFF

Today my daughter’s friend showed her a necklace she had received from another little girl, something about being “Best Friends Forever.”  Oh great, now I gotta start dealing with this shit?  Why not just wear a t-shirt that says, “You’re not my best friend, so shrivel up and die”? 

Believe me when I say that I know how adorable the trinkets are, I’ve wanted to buy one myself, and if it was my daughter wearing one I would not be nearly as concerned about the inherent evil involved.

My own childhood suddenly comes clearly into vision and Sissie Spacek (from the movie Carrie) is my sister. 

My Baby Brother

Over the last week my brother proved that, yes, you can sit in a chair and watch TV for 7 days.  He was determined to maintain the reclining position and he won the battle.

I should not lie.  Once he got up, drove to the movie theater, and watched two films.  Then he drove home and returned to the TV.

We were staying in a beach house, perhaps 150 feet from the seashore, and he never ever, not even once, stuck his toes in the sand.  He did not swim, snorkel, stroll on the beach, collect shells, or sunbathe.  To his credit, he did take a few pictures of the shore.

But he did not go with us to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Pea Island, Cape Hatteras or Jockey’s Ridge State Park.  He did not climb any dunes, ride any ferries, see any kite surfers or have his picture taken with a lighthouse.  He cannot claim to have visited Ocracoke Island, even if he might be the only other family member that could pronounce it properly. 

When Jim was a little boy he was asked by someone, “What do you want to do when you grow up?”  His answer, at perhaps 6-years of age, was “Sit on my ass and watch TV.”  Who knows where he came up with this idea?  Who knew he would actually do it?

My husband, a glass half full kind of guy, claims it’s an incredible thing that Jim has followed his heart and met his goal.  But it would be easier for me to deal with if Jim wasn’t hard of hearing, didn’t listen to the TV at full volume from morning till night, and stayed away from tributes to Hillary Clinton.  I also did not want to hear quite so much about the potential war with Iran while attempting to vacation peacefully.

Jim arrived at the shore with $14 total.  He knew that my mother would pay for everything.  Each day, as he sat in his chair, food was delivered along with gifts and clothing.  It is with great effort that we were able to find clothing in a size 4X.  It is a tribute to what idiotic women will do for selfish men.

After eating chocolate and shellfish Jim came down with a bout of the gout Friday evening.  He could barely walk.  He has had a gastric bypass operation and should eat absolutely no sugar.  He can pass out.  He could have a stroke.  He could have a third heart attack and keel over dead.  Yet my mother bought him salad dressings filled with sugar and Captain Crunch. 

Amazingly, he stuck to his plan and had no alcohol whatsoever all week.  He probably lost 25 pounds.  But he did get woozy and have slurred speech due to salad dressing overdose.

Jim is funny, smart, and handsome.  However, his body makes almost constant sniffling, farting, belching and rumbling sounds.  He is incredibly stubborn and defensive.  I wish he would never drink again. 

But I also wish he would not sop his pizza in french dressing.  I wish he would live a long and healthy life, walking on the beach, being my favorite and only adored baby brother.

My Smoking Sister

During our trip to the Outer Banks my sister must have smoked at least 300 cigarettes.  She would take a lit nub to bed at night if she could only figure out how to stay alive in the process.  I believe she could easily smoke in her sleep.

She does not hang out with people who don’t smoke, as they would have little in common, and this includes me.  So of course boyfriend Mike is a smoker.  He is a haughty smoker, however, according to my mother, since he still insists on Marlboros, no matter the price.  I believe Penny’s brand today is Doral.  All week, the smell of smoke clung to their clothes like a romantic cloud.

During every meal there would be a look, a head nod, and the next thing you knew there were two empty seats and smoke wafting past the window.  It often happened at check time.  Many hours were spent alone together on the overhanging ocean dunes balcony inhaling toxic love.  Smoking is very sensual, lighting each others cigarettes under the bright moon, over the roiling ocean, until the coughing and spitting begins.

She has a tattoo of a wolf on her shoulder.  She loves dogs and horses.  She really loves dogs.  She loves dogs so much that I can’t spend too much time in her house because I am allergic to dogs.  I believe she uses them to protect herself against me like a Sloman’s Shield.  The smell of the dogs combined with smoke is my idea of hell. 

When I watch movies that include the perfect ideal of happy sisterhood, or laughing sisters hanging out with their mom, it’s no different than an episode of The Twilight Zone.  I want my sister and I to be close.  She is so much closer to other smokers and any stray dog on the street, including that guy she’s dating.

They say you should “choose your own family.”  So I go shopping with friends, I have meals with my husband, I get manicures with my daughter.  I miss my sister even when she’s in the same room with me.  Usually, however, she’s outside smoking.

Witness Protection Program

 

The newest pseudo/psycho member of our family is “Mike,” a guy who is currently divorcing his fourth wife in the hopes that he can be my sister’s third husband.  I believe he may be in the Witness Protection Program since he 1.) Is terrified of having his picture taken, 2.) Is the most incredible soft talker I have ever experienced and 3.) Looks like Charles Manson.

I have never met a person who it was impossible to have a conversation with.  Mind you, I have been a probation officer and had conversations with criminals of all kinds, even a guy who was mentally disturbed due to the fact that his father had a pet chicken and regularly had sex with it in the yard, then one day decided to kill it and serve it for dinner.  Mike is even weirder than him.

I don’t even know how to explain it.  I would say things and Mike would completely misinterpret my statements.  He would say things that I could not understand because he provided no background.  Of course, every single time he spoke I had to say, “What?”

He has given my sister some sort of diamond(s) and says things like, “DID YOU SEE THE DIAMONDS ON YOUR SISTER’S HAND?”  At least one of them was purchased at a pawn shop.  As stated previously, he attempted to swim out into the ocean and touch porpoises, but was unsuccessful.

He gives my sister a bite of his dinner before he tastes it himself.  He claims she has never “been treated right.”  He has Harley tattoos and wears only Harley attire, yet does not own a Harley.  He wears a diamond pinky ring and is about 5’7.”  The wife he is currently divorcing has cancer and she’s dragging him down.

He spent time in jail because of back child support to the tune of $70,000, most still owed to the State of Indiana.  The only reason he doesn’t have a case with the State of Missouri yet is because they haven’t caught up with him.  He has four children and his wages are being garnished.  He claims one of the children is not his.  I don’t know how any of them could be, as I am shocked any woman did not slap his penis away like a pesky gnat.  I’m actually shocked he even has a penis.

Do you think my sister should marry him?  Can you believe she’s actually combined her bank account with his?  Should I be honest in my opinion of him, if she asks?  If they marry in Vegas should I just consider it another family vacation and keep my mouth shut?

Great Fruit Buffet

Tonight we all went to dinner together.  My mother and brother insisted on returning to a place about 15 miles away where they had a buffet with “great fruit” for breakfast.  There were about 125 interesting places between here and there. 

My sister’s guy, Mike, has arrived.  He is quite unshaven, smokes heavily and has lots of tattoos.  Imagining my sister touching him naked is impossible.  He attempted to swim out into the ocean and touch porpoises this afternoon.  He did not succeed.

I now know that I am missing nothing by eating with just my basic little family at all holiday meals; no one spoke much at this dinner either!  I tried to get Mike to talk and he looked at me like he had been ordered to keep his mouth shut or else he just simply found my normal speaking abilities terrifying.  And later I realized he’s a soft talker, so I would not have been able to hear him even if he spoke to me.

When we arrived at the restaurant — no buffet, no fruit!  My brother filled his plate up like a mountain from the salad bar and then stated he was too full to eat the “All You Cat Eat” spaghetti plate he had ordered.  Rather than telling the waitress the truth, he told her it tasted “off” and she took the price off the tab.  He belched throughout the meal. 

My sister and her boyfriend ordered only salad bars and appeared shocked that the menu was more expensive than a Burger King.  Then they all stated that they thought even the salad tasted bad.  God, I hate going to a meal and listening to people bitch!  I was so pleased when my daughter said, “It’s the best salad I ever had!”  My mother paid for their meals and yet there were no thank you’s directed her way. Mom attempted to short the waitress on the tip, so I added to it when she wasn’t looking.

I think what I’ve realized is that all we have in common is conversing with each other about each other.  We’re uncomfortable when we’re all together because there is nothing to talk about.  Someone has to leave the room to be able to find something interesting to say!  And it makes me wonder, what do they say about me when I leave the room?  It’s not hard to guess.

The moon is shining spectacularly over the ocean. The breeze is blowing.  We’re here for three more nights.

Strange Silence

When I am with good friends there is barely room for silence. We yammer and yap, analyze and laugh.  When I see my family I expect it to be like that.  I mean they’re family, right?  It’s a ridiculous expectation.  God forbid we actually have fun with one another.

I made some inane comment yesterday while watching TV about “Why do you think. . .”  My brother said, “Well, I’m not going to analyze it unless somebody pays me.”  What?  I analyze everything.  It’s my entertainment.  What is the point of life if not to analyze?  My brother finds me annoying.  I asked him how he’s feeling without alcohol.  “I’m not an alcoholic.”

Shopping yesterday with my mother and sister.  My mother gives me $100.  Woohoo!  At 47 or 12 it’s fun to get money.

But you would think, or at least I would think, that when spending time with family you see no more than once or twice a year there would barely be enough time to fit in all the conversation, the sharing of information, the details of a life lived apart.  But instead we can drive along for miles in silence.  My sister asks me nothing about my life.  My mother asks me a few basic questions but doesn’t really seem to want to listen to my answers.  I think she finds me a bit silly.

For example, I always lock my car.  Mom purposely will wait behind, then eventually come into the store behind us.  I ask “Did you lock the car?”  She responds, “Don’t need to.”  I always park at a distance, avoiding dings on my doors.  Mom says, “Park in handicapped.”  She is not handicapped, she is overweight.  She has a handicapped sticker that one of her truck drivers somehow obtained for her.  I do not believe it’s legal.  They bitch about having to wear a seat belt in my car because they don’t think it’s necessary. My sister says, “You could die in a fire.”

We stopped at Jockey Ridge State Park with magnificent sand dunes.  My daughter and I walked up the dunes to see the sunset.  My mom stayed in the car.  My sister smoked a cigarette in the parking lot.  My daughter asked several times, “Why wouldn’t Grandma and Penny come?  What’s wrong with your family?”  I will be going back to the dunes with my husband and daughter.

And on the way home my sister got mad as hell because Burger King was closed.  “What the hell am I going to eat now?”  Are you kidding me?  There is more than $300 worth of food in the house for a single week for just 7 people.

This is really about the temperature in the house.  My brother and I have the air conditioning on sub-zero, I had the air on in the car.  She’s sick of it. 

But if she’s going to keep bitching then I want the room with the queen size bed, the room I didn’t take because she had already had to ride in the back seat of the rental Mustang, had to ride in the middle seat on the airplane.  Because Penny is thin she gets treated like a second-class citizen.  Neither Mom or Jim could fit in the back seat of the car.  Jim can’t sleep in a single bed, as it’s just too small.

I would be happy to sleep on the floor if we had great conversation and spoke of things other than Burger King.

He’s Cut Off His Arm . . .

 

There is an array of excitement in the air when I am with my family.

There is excitement when my mother boils shrimp and people pile in to get their share.  It was exciting when I found a 6-inch crab in the sand and brought it back so my daughter could keep it and torture it and refuse to release it.  The usual kind of shore fun.

There is excitement when my mom describes my sister’s boyfriend and his many Harley tattoos, arrest for child support (he has it in two states), and four marriages.  He has not arrived yet and I am even more anxious to check him out.  Well, not exactly “anxious.”  It’s just plain exciting! Nothing pleases me more than meeting someone unusual. 

There is excitement when I hear the story that my nephew was arrested at Talladega Raceway last weekend and spent the night in an Alabama jail.  We then discuss all the other jail experiences of family members and I am amazed at the enormous number!  So when did my family start regularly getting locked up?  And why is it not really considered a big deal?  How does this happen?  My grandparents were farmers, my great-grandmother owned a car dealership.  My father was a Marine!  None of them ever went to jail! 

There is excitement, anxiety and fear when my nephew calls to say, “I think Grandpa cut his arm off!”  This is not a statement I ever expected to hear in my entire lifetime.  Grandpa Ray is my step-father, #2.  He did not come on vacation.  I guess technically he’s my ex-stepfather, since he and my mother were divorced due to financial issues.  They also fight a lot, but that wasn’t the reason for the divorce.  They are just both completely bonkers.

Ray runs a trucking company and does some of the necessary mechanical work on trucks as they come into his shop. My nephew lives above the shop with his girlfriend and her 1-year old, Harley.  That would be the girl whose father is on death row in Alabama, whose mother is in prison for life.  Back to the story: Ray was working on a grinder, the belief is that he had probably been drinking, and he ran his wrist through the grinder.  It sliced about 3 inches above the wrist to the bone.

There was talk, also, of the grinder cutting his abdomen.  I actually thought the next call was going to be that he had died.  Fortunately, according to my sister, my nephew gets really freaked out over blood and the entire arm was not severed, the abdomen was fine.  However, the reality is that if my nephew had not heard Ray yelling his name, then Ray would probably have died very quickly from blood loss.  He hit an artery.

Many calls went back and forth.  Ray was being moved to a trauma center for surgery. 

 I kind of started liking the guy during our last vacation, as he told stories of his childhood, growing up in Kentucky with 11 siblings, no plumbing, dirt floor, etc.  During his courtship with my mother his crazy sister stabbed him in the back with an enormous knife after he told her to go do some dishes or other woman’s work.  (As a side note, I do admire the  intensity of this woman’s response, as I also hate housework!)

Ray is a dreamer & sometimes alcoholic.  He dreams up scams like starting a tire recycling plant.  My mother is a financial genius.  She makes enough of Ray’s dreams come true that he puts up with the fact that she’s crazy.  Even trade!

Also worth mentioning, my brother become physically ill from eating French dressing (a lot of French dressing), since it’s full of sugar.  He isn’t drinking, so he’s eating.  Don’t we all?

When my sister mentioned to her boyfriend the possibility of using a cadaver for replacing body parts he said, “You mean a mechanical hand?”  He had never heard of a cadaver.  And then she laughed her hysterical laughter and we all joined in.  Yes, she’s picked another questionable mate, but don’t we all?

My husband sits and watches the waves, saying little or nothing.  We are the only couple in the house, yet we ended up sleeping in twin beds pushed together, with a 10-year old in the middle.  This makes me laugh.

It’s all good, so long as nobody died.

Will We Survive?

 

When it’s time to prepare for vacation I send out letters I’ve been meaning to for months.  We are leaving for vacation tomorrow.  For once, I would like to pack before midnight and take only one bag.  It is my Mt. Everest climb, the impossible dream.

We will be vacationing with my mother, brother, sister & her boyfriend with the mullet & handlebar moustache.  Yikes!  I have never met him and am nervous about spending an entire week in the same house.  WTF?

   

(NOTE: After seeing the real Mike, this is an outrageously good looking picture of him.) 

A house on the shore of the Outer Banks.  I did not like living in North Carolina, but anticipate the shore will be different.

Probably my family will be the same, though.  Mom will bring cakes, cookies, many pounds of meat.  She will try choking it down and it will get stuck in her esophagus because of the balloon implant.  She will hit her chest like a big monkey, to make it go down, or come up, whichever the case may be.

Brother claims he’s not drinking this week, but has already said he doubts he’ll make it past Tuesday.  Since he had the gastric bypass he drinks 30-packs at a single sitting.  30% of people with the bypass become alcoholics.  He belches and farts with abandon, but that’s not really a new thing.  He cannot eat sugar or he will sweat profusely and potentially fall-out unconscious.  So I guess that’s why Mom will bring so much sugar into the house.  He’s her favorite!

And sister — well, the mullet.  She will smoke more than a pack a day, pissed that she must do it outdoors.  She will laugh her hysterical laugh that makes me happy.  She is funny as hell.  But also really, really angry.  Be careful.  She would not ride the trolley with me in San Francisco because smoking was not allowed.   Again, I must ask, WTF?

My nephew will not be coming this year.  Two years ago, the summer I nearly managed to drown us both in a riptide off LBI, he and my mother got into a physical altercation in the backseat of my aunt & uncle’s car.  The aunt and uncle won’t be coming either!  Surprise, surprise!   

That same summer my daughter knocked on the communal bathroom door.  She thought I was inside.  She asked, “What are you doing?”  My brother’s reply: “I’m shittin’.”  She has spoken of that for two years now.

Good stuff to come . . .

Bears & Fat

 

Gaining weight and being fat is sometimes a much more reasonable option than it may seem to the outside world, more reasonable than it even seems to my logical brain.

You know how sometimes you can talk about a subject over and over, and rationalize it, and think you understand it, but then one day you actually FEEL IT, GET IT, KNOW IT?  I’ve always intellectually discussed the fact that I believe I gained weight subconsciously as a way to avoid attention from men.  It made sense. 

But in speaking about it the other day with a friend of mine she put it bluntly: “It’s the attention.  If they appear to be attracted to me, if they give me any attention at all, no matter what a piece of shit they may be, I crave the attention.”  AND THAT SPOKE TO ME.  It’s not about sex or love or men, it’s about someone validating my essence and acting like I’m important.

And of course that’s what happens, someone ACTS like you’re important until they have consumed you, until they are done with you.

I miss the random attention that comes with being thin and pretty.  But I do not miss being used.  I do not miss making all the wrong choices in life, choosing the best actors instead of the best humans.

There is a hole inside me that exists because my childhood self lost her father and was not loved by her mother.  I tried to fill that endless black emptiness with the attention of men who were only interested in conquering my physical self.  They are monsters.  There is a sexual piece of the male ego that is monstrous.  Some men, like my darling husband, control it.  They are human beings of the highest order.

Thin women feel superior in their high heels, tempting the world with huge fake breasts, looking beautiful in high fashion clothing.  They wonder why fat women would dream of being seen on the street looking so incredibly ugly in comparison.  It is the difference between hanging yourself in a tree covered with honey, tempting the hungry bear, or hiding inside your tent pretending to be dead already.

I, and millions of women like me, don’t want to be eaten alive by any more bears.

I know many women who look so much better than I do but tend to find themselves with animalistic men who treat them like shit.  Think hard about what you’re using as bait and what you hope to catch.

I would love to somehow get it all together and be both thin and happy.  Sigh.  One day.

Sometimes I’m A Little Psychotic . . .

 

I can feel so calm and normal, twiddling my way through the day, and then something happens that seems to rip my head off and put it on sideways.  I usually can’t even see it coming.

I am reminded of a time when some kids in our neighborhood let their dog poop on our yard while I was watching.  They refused to pick it up.  I put the dog poop on a dinner plate and delivered it to their mother at her front door, while ranting about dogs, poop & expensive sneakers. 

I felt this same crazy anger last week.  We had just left a group playdate and my daughter began giving her perspective on the event.  She wasn’t happy.  I had no idea why.  I had been chatting with a friend throughout, ignoring everything else.

As it turns out, my girl was shooting hoops and another girl sweetly returned her ball after a shot.  The girl’s father then said, “YOU DON’T HAVE TO RETURN THAT BALL!  YOU GOT THE REBOUND!”  As my daughter said, “Mommy, that really hurt my feelings,” I began to feel pressure in my chest, a pressure I wanted to transfer to his balls.

Next, she told me another girl refused to let her play tag with their group.  Psychosis had arrived.

It sounds so minor as I write it, but tiny aneurysms were bursting in my brain as she chatted on about what I never saw happening.  I wanted this father to find his way into one of those huge brush cutters, where his body could be mangled beyond recognition.  I wanted to return and tie all the bad little mean children up with rope and place them on the train tracks like an episode of  Dudley Do-Right, me in the role of deadly villain Snidely Whiplash.

And then  . . . we got to our pottery class and there was a little girl sitting in my chair.  I am suddenly Papa Bear and this little bitch Goldilocks is in my bed.  And I question how I can be so incredibly small-minded and immature, and yet I am.  I begin to laugh in disbelief.  She stole my fucking chair!

So I refuse to play with the clay and for two hours whisper an angst-filled comedy routine to my 10-year old.  I tell her I want to throw clay balls at this other little girl.  I speak disparagingly of her mother.  And I say things that make us both dissolve into laughter because they are so inappropriate.  My daughter tells me, “Mom, you are really crazy.”  And I agree with her. 

But the small part of my brain that supports sanity begins rationalizing and sorting out the pieces.  And I think about how when I am angry I can be meaner, say meaner things, be more cutting and evil, than anyone else on the planet — toward my own family.  If anyone else raised their voice to my son or daughter the way I have in the past, I might very well be willing to go to jail for the sake of revenge.

Why are we kinder to strangers than we tend to be to our own families?  Why do we expect more of strangers than we do of ourselves? 

Sometimes I’m a little psychotic, but I hope to God I can somehow make up for it in other ways.

One Day Childhood Ends

Yesterday my daughter washed and dried her own hair for the first time.  She recently had her very first professional haircut and layers were added to her long curls, making it easier to deal with.  It’s no longer stringy and separate, or hanging like a long rastafarian’s dreadlocks.

In the car she began telling my husband and I that the reason she wants to do her own hair is because of all the bitching I did while removing the tangles.  Sometimes we would go 3 or 4 days without taking on the task, and then it would be an overwhelming nightmare.  And I could be mean and nasty during an hour-long detangling session.

I responded to her comments by saying that when I was doing all the bitching I was not looking into the future and realizing that one day I would no longer be doing her hair, that she would grow up and be able to do it herself, that she would not be a little girl any more, that there would be an actual “last time.”  And I began to cry, as I am now while I write this.

The reason for the long hair is 1.) It’s beautiful, and 2.) my mother would always force me to have a pixie cut that made me cry.  I have reasoned that, once again, I am superior to my own mom because I would never cut my daughter’s hair.  However, if I made her cry, how am I really different? 

By the time I told her that I am a terrible mother she was crying, too.  My husband was losing his mind, wanting to jump from the car, but he was driving.

It is so difficult to keep your eye on the prize, keeping emotions in check, remembering that there will be a time when children are grown and parents sit home alone, wishing they could have just one more day with their son or daughter at 3 or 7 or 12.

But I knew this already.  My son is 22 and I miss everything about him being my little boy.  I can cry while walking through a grocery store if I see a mom and her young son alone together, the way he and I used to be.

There is no taking back, there is no returning.  There is only this moment and trying to do my best in this very moment.  I wish I did my best more often.

Ten Kids

This is my sister Penny and I on Christmas morning in 1964.  We are 14 months apart and my father spanked me the night she came home from the hospital.  Time to grow up!  You’ve got a little sister!  No more crying or waking up in the middle of the night!  And he was the good parent.  It was an endearing family tale told on many holidays.

So then I guess it’s not surprising that my children are almost 12 years apart and are ‘only’ children for all intents and purposes. 

The relationships in our family are all very individuated and I believe I’ve set it up that way, my subconscious desire to be loved most, to be the most important to all.  I didn’t know I was doing it.  It sounds so totally obnoxious on paper.

I sometimes am sad because my family feels too small for what I believe a family should be.  The two men in my life seem incapable of having dinner and carrying on a conversation at the same time.  I’d invite the homeless over for Thanksgiving dinner but I’m afraid they might have bugs.  Add to that the fact that I am a terrible cook and the proposition is just too intimidating.

I felt so unimportant to my own mother that I went to the opposite end of the spectrum and made my children my life; they are my prince and princess, no expectations for sharing.  But of course it could be argued that what I’ve done is fuck them up in the process.

I bought my daughter the game Pretty, Pretty Princess, but I don’t want to play it.  I didn’t like children’s games even when I was a child.  Fortunately I married a man willing to wear crowns and pink bracelets.  He wears powder and lipstick without complaint.

I want it all, I want everything.  I want 10 kids with no mess, 10 kids with only a little noise, 10 kids and a leather couch with no fingerprints, 10 kids who don’t expect me to cook.  I want 10 kids and no responsibilities. 

Gee, that sounds like my attitude toward food.  I want to eat whatever I want to eat whenever I want it, with no repercussions.  I am all consuming with my children in the same way.  I would want 10 kids and lots of alone time with each of them.

I still live my life like Christmas mornings as a girl:  I would gather all my gifts, corral them into my little corner, away from the other five kids.  As soon as I had the chance I would run it all up to my room to get some distance.

I’ve protected my family in the same way.  I moved far away, I keep my children to myself and attempt to shelter them from the outside world, a world that may try to take them away or hurt them.

We hold onto these little babies, believing they are ours, and then we find out the truth of the matter: they will grow up and do whatever the hell they please.  And that is the way it was meant to be.  Hold them too close, keep them too clean, protect them too much, and they will fight until they are free and dirty and unprotected.

Children are not china dolls; they cannot be collected and protected.  But it is many a mother’s desire to do so.  The enigma of life.

Haiti & Twinkies

I know a woman adopting a third child, a boy from Haiti.  I am fascinated by this jump from a cliff and a little jealous.  I am in awe at the Olympian-like willingness to accept the necessary pain and take home the gold: more than two years of waiting and wondering and filling out paperwork and imagining the boy who would become their child living in an orphanage.  I am not an Olympian.  I’m the guy who gets in a car when the marathon begins and then waits in a bush near the finish line.

It’s the fact that he’s a third child that brings up issues for me.  Why did I stop at two? 

I wish I was the kind of person who would go for the third child, the fourth child.  But I was too worried that I would be like my own mother, crazed with frantic rage, overwhelmed by too many children.  And often I believe I was right.  I am easily overwhelmed.

There is also a superstitious part of me that is afraid to ask for too much joy.  I punish myself so that someone else doesn’t have to step in and do the job.  That’s really what my overeating is all about.   

But if I was out adopting children from Haiti perhaps I would have less time for pointless introspection and be forced to share my Twinkies?