Trailer Park Karma

From The What Was I Thinking Department: Learning To Love Instead Of Falling Into It

No, this isn't about The Editor and me. 

This is more about one of my other infatuation receptacles: My place in The Sticks.

If you've been following along, you've seen how over the past year I've rumbled through the various stages of my relationship with The Sticks. I've fallen in love with a few of the many places I've lived in the past, but never so hard as for here. Early on I was convinced that this is where I would be until my body's End Times. Love, love, flowery love... Then, of course, little things started popping up like zits on a lover's nose. But just as easily (and sometimes as fun) as squeezing the bad stuff out of blemishes, I'd get over it.  

Then came the biggies. The things I couldn't get over. Or under or around, even. What's left? Through... ah, yes. Going Through something with Your Love. Blech. But... that's Love, right?

Yes. Really. 

I learned to love the wind.

See, it's easy to love stuff that, well, you already love. You meet someone, you find a place, you get a job -- and you LOVE the things that you already loved, even before falling for this One.
Any fool can do that.

Then there are those things that you never knew before, the traits of Your Love that are shiny and new to your life. Much of the time, those are the little widgets that really grab our attention. Oooooh, it's SO [fill in the blank]! I just LOVE that about [Your Love Here].

But how about those nasty little murkies that at first aren't revealed, tidily tucked into crevices until, finally, life's interactions expose them? Your eyes widen, or maybe they narrow, and you glare, or stare, or blink, or cry. Not That! Of all things, not THAT! That Thing You've Always Hated! Or maybe not hated so much as really been annoyed by.

Like the wind.

In Swamp City, the wind is annoying. More than that even. Or it is to me, anyway. There seem to be two speeds: High and Off. In the Off position, you slog through the air, your body pushing against the water molecules that surround you. If you like saunas while fully clothed, it's The Place For You. And there's really no such thing as a breeze in Swamp City -- that's just faster moving water vapor, so it sweats you up a little faster. Occasionally, though, the wind slips into high speed. That's when you're walking around the side of a building and suddenly your hair is up ended, your skirt goes flyin’, and your lips start flappin’. Whole lotta that downtown, but high-speed wind does its share of careening around houses, too. 

Not a fan of Swamp City wind. Do not like it.

Out here, where there really is such a thing as a cool breeze and where my laundry can often dry on the line in 15 minutes, The Wind is like a distinct, living entity that you must be acquainted with in order to live here. It's full of changes and it has varied characteristics, so it's never boring. Kinda like a new neighbor or friend.

For instance: its howl. See, the wind here is nearly unstopped. You can almost tell sometimes that it's come from some other place, like one of the other big cities (no WAY could it be coming from Swamp City; the water would weigh it down) in the east or the northwest, where it's been pent up and trying to move amid obstacles. By the time it's out here with nothing to stand in its way, the Wind lets loose a howl of relieved glee.

The only time I've heard the wind howl like that in Swamp City was during Hurricane Ike. That wasn't gleeful in the least.

In The Sticks, it makes me laugh. The wind here has actually squeezed an "oooh!" from me when its whistling was especially melodic. Some days my new friend is damned impressive. There's not a thing wimpy about its 30mph gusts. Sure, Swamp City gets gusty, but there, it feels like you're being blown to your knees. Here, The Wind moves along the ground; it seems like your body will be lifted by the armpits and scooped into the air, just like when you were a kid.

At first, I was a bit taken aback by The Wind out here. I complained about its omnipresence. Full-forced, noisy, and always around. Some days it got in the way of tasks and disrupted my life. But I respected it. It got my attention. And while I may have grumbled at first, like during the third night in a row of what seemed like a nonstop assault of rattling rafters and dust dunes looming in my house, eventually I noticed something funny: I smiled about The Wind. My whines became tinged with at least one upturned side of my lips, until finally, I found myself standing in my open back door, meditating as The Wind billowed and buffeted around me. Not to get all Hippie Dippy on ya, but I imagined my own molecules being scattered and carried to wherever The Wind wanted.

This morning isn't particularly windy, but nearly every dawn here is followed by a playful breeze like today's. As I ran around the house, trying to accomplish at least one of the several in-progress tasks that seem never-ending, what with what passes for Internet out in The Sticks and the sundry appliances and amenities that are breaking down in the house now, I heard the wind whistle. And I smiled.

I realized that I'd learned to love The Wind.

And that's another reason why I came here to The Sticks in the first place.

Awww... Labeling Love

Way back when The Editor and I were thick in the steam of our new relationship, we connected via Internet. A LOT. He was up in NYC, I was down in Swamp City, and it was all we could do at that point to keep from hopping on planes to grope each other in person. Well, we actually did that twice. But mostly we did it on the Internet -- just like a lotta you do.

At some point, we went through what's become a relationship rite of passage: How To Define Us On Facebook.

Our choices at the time were:  
Single (technically true) 
Divorced (quite true) 
Engaged (what a ridiculous status) 
Married (nope, nope, double-nope) 
Widowed/Separated/Divorced (why???)
In a Relationship (with either a mysterious No-Name partner or One For All The Facebook World to See)

and the ever-popular

It's Complicated

That whole "open relationship" thing didn't come around until later.

We started out In a Relationship. But I was -- if my memory is correct -- in a relationship with him, while he was in a relationship with No Name. Then things got, well, interesting, what with him up there and me down here, so I changed mine to It's Complicated. Lots of you know from your own Facebook fun what happened next: The Editor simply then became unrelated to the world by choosing no connection status. [The Editor's note: hmm.. your recollection is slightly different than mine...  but that's ok.]

Sigh... those were tough times. But look what we came up with in one of our hours-long IM chats -- Facebook Statuses That Should Be!

Pretty sure similar lists have been written, but here's what we think are more targeted ways to refer to couplings. Instead of those boring, often-inaccurate labels, you could be... :

(please insert appropriate preposition -- with, at, on, in, etc -- when necessary)

in love

in like like

having sex frequently/occasionally

insanely plotting with/against

deeply enthralled 

juggling schedules 

butting heads 

mind melding 

swapping spit 

parsimoniously interacting 

getting wasted 

pawing

drunk on the pheromones of 

beating and bruising 

beating the backside of 

taking one in the backside for 

ever so fond of 

lying in wait for 

knowing X in the Biblical sense

carnally knowing 

searching for my parents 

vindictively spying on 

open to suggestions from 

healing family of origin baggage 

wishing for better from 

not believing I'm still involved  

biting the ankles of 

sucking the toes of

slipping in the bodily fluids of 

cleaning up stray hairs of 

searching for the earwax of 

making voodoo dolls of 

patting X's head

being coddled by 

boiling the blood of 

in a mutual admiration society of/with

boiling the bunny of 

finishing X's sentences

violating X's restraining order

disobeying 

obeying 

discovering the universe of 

doing X's sister/s

doing X's mother

doing X's brother

doing X's goat

doing X's pumpkin

trying hard to please 

trying to get out from under 

trying to get under 

trying to get one over on 

tweaking the nipples of 

using clothespins on the body parts of

dancing with 

riding waves with 

drowning in a sea of X's shit

drowning in a sea of X's ex's shit

wishing X was Y

wishing X was anyone other than who X is

trying to fix X

trying to break X

trying to quell X's fury

hiding under a bush until X calms down

raining on X's parades

peeing on X's leg

publishing X's life story

confused by X

reflecting X

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

A Whiskey Road Love Story

On a brisk October evening, something other than a crushed beer can sparkled at me as I walked my dog down Whiskey Road near the creek. Usually the caliche road is nothing but shades of grey, white, and brown, with the occasional splash of a blood stain or silver and blue aluminum. That night, I spied something black and white and purple. 

We stopped, of course, the dog  and I. Novelty doesn't come often enough for us out here. It was a photo strip, one of those series of pictures that are taken in a booth, the kind you find in some bars, amusement joints, and my personal favorite: at an ice cream store in the big city. The booth's occupants in this case were a couple, a young man and woman, who were obviously pretty tickled with each other. Possibly even tickling each other, judging from the shots. 

We'll call them Bubba and Cissy.

They were both smiling in every frame, although Bubba appeared a tad more stoic than Cissy in two instances. He stayed in place, squarely on the bench, while her image moved from beside him, to overlooking his forehead, then to his other ear, and of course, the standard side-by-side-ear-to-ear-grins-with-your-eyes-too-wide shot. Nothing unusual in this strip of pictures, nothing naughty. But its location, on the side of a dusty country road, was poignant.

Did it fly out the truck window as they sped away from the dancehall, down the hill toward the slow-moving creek? Perhaps Cissy and Bubba quarreled soon after their happy photo booth lark. Had Cissy walked the same path I do every day and discarded this souvenir of a night she wanted to forget? Was Bubba one of the guys who gather in the ravine next to the creek, scattering glass and aluminum remnants of what young men do, and did he cynically toss it after being teased by his buddies? 

Maybe the couple met here, at the creek with its barely audible gurgle, banks of lily pads, and stumbling turtles, to talk one last time. Bubba offered to return the photo strip she'd left in his truck. Cissy insisted he hang on to it. He reckoned there was no safe place to keep these images that reflected his longing.  All the reminders he'd ever need were branded in his brain. He wished even those would evaporate.

So there it lay the next day. Light and film and paper and carefree smiles, covered by more dust with each passing pickup.

Even in The Sticks, on roads that see maybe 20 vehicles on any given day, things don't stay the same for long. When I returned the next day with a camera -- to get a shot of the sad little purple and black and white memento -- all I found in the waning light of sundown on the colorless road was blue. 

Bubba and Cissy were gone.

 

 Postlude:

Turns out the end of the story came a week later.

Another day, another jog down Whiskey Road, and out of the corner of my right eye, there it was: the photos of Bubba and Cissy had returned.  I excitedly dragged the dog back to the house to fetch my camera and raced back to avoid losing my story’s inspiration again. Shooting photo after photo of the images, I realized all the details I’d conjured up incorrectly in my first account. The “purple” cast was more pink. There was no black, only deeper magenta.

But even more intriguing to me was how I’d remembered the couple’s faces – and been wrong. With digital shots to aid my memory, I saw no stoicism in Bubba’s smile. Cissy’s face didn’t seem to be clamoring for attention. They were both simply looking at the camera, faces side-by-side, occasionally caught off-guard with half a grin, but smiling every time.

I was tempted to take the strip home with me (my folks will laugh and recall how I rummaged through neighbors’ garbage for usable room décor), but it seemed to me that Bubba and Cissy are destined to be together forever down by the creek on Whiskey Road.

 

Descansos Grandes de la Muerte

by Karrie Sue Chambless

Some months ago I commented that I would be mastering the art of forgiveness very soon.  Yeah, I was bein’ a little boastful and proud, but who wouldn’t take pride in forgiving?  The day after I made this statement I became enraged with my third ex-husband.  At the time I felt it was a huge setback, but I was mistaken.

We’ve all heard that forgiving others is more for us than for those who’ve hurt us; I’m findin’ it to be more true now than ever before.  Lettin’ go of anger, resentment, and bitterness has freed my soul, just like they said.  Like the lotus, we rise up gloriously out of the mud and mire, blossoming with compassion (red), inner wisdom (blue), and peace (gold). 

Sometimes forgiveness is something we have to work at, other times it just happens on its own.  Several years ago I discovered that I had forgiven my first husband without even realizing it.  Our relationship was hell, really.  We were young, had both just suffered personal traumas, and didn’t know what we were doin’, honestly.  We went to therapy, sought advice from our pastor, but it ended after a year and a half.

The last time we talked on the phone, which was almost 20 years ago, I told him to never contact me again.  I was angry, hurt, and felt like the victim.  A few years back he sent a message on LinkedIn with a short apology, and news of what he’d gone through after our divorce.  Surprisingly enough, I was happy to hear from him!  I thanked him for contacting me, and sent him my cell number, then waited anxiously for him to call.

I hadn’t made a conscious decision to forgive him.  Of course I’d thought about our relationship over the years, tried to make sense of it.  I’d just chalked it up to water under the bridge, lessons learned.  He finally called, just as surprised as I was that I was eager to talk with him.  I mean, our relationship was really ugly.  I had no idea when I’d forgiven him, but none of the ugly stuff from the past seemed to matter anymore.  Turns out it’d been an important learning experience for both of us.

And we still had things to learn from it.  Last summer I decided to go back to Austin for a visit with him and his parents.  Several people asked me if I was sure I wanted to do that, surprised I would even consider seeing him again.  I was certain that’s what I wanted to do.  See, we met soon after my grandfather committed suicide, and I was still tryin’ to work through some of that pain.  He drove me all over town, told me what part of my life had happened everywhere we went.  All that happened there was so painful I’d just blocked it out.  And since he was part of that time in my life, he had to be part of the healing.

We laughed and cried a lot.  I saw his parents.  I’d thought of them fondly many times through the years, and it was great to see them again.  I met the lady he shares his life with.  We had a wonderful time together.  It felt like all that bad stuff had never happened, and that we were all old friends who’d not seen each other in a very long time.

You’ll not hear me boasting that “I’ll soon be mastering the art of forgiveness,” ‘cause life always throws us opportunities to work on stuff, doesn’t it?  Rude drivers in the city, angry and aggressive neighbors, malicious co-workers.  Then our relationships with our friends, parents, children, and other loved ones...all opportunities to not take things personally. 

Don Miguel Ruiz wrote in his book "The Four Agreements," that "Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about me."

We hafta remind ourselves that it’s actually not “all about me;” and  “I am not the only one on the planet!”  Holding on to anger, hurt, and resentment weighs us down, makes us into angry, hurtful, and resentful people.  Forgiving others really is for ourselves.  It cleans out the muck and mire so our spirits can soar with compassion, wisdom, and peace, making us much nicer people to be around.

White Pickets or Hogwire: Relishing Disillusionment

Many years ago, before the Internet even, I cavorted with a good friend in an 'out-of-bounds' sorta way. We're both otherwise diligent and caring folks, albeit still human animals, so we cleaned up our mess rather quickly and moved on with life.

We kept in touch by way of e-mail when that became The Thing To Do. Eons (okay, like, 12 years) later, my friend and I were catching each other up on our myriad life events (mostly related to my Job Search du Jour, I think) when he casually typed that he "relished" memories of the time we'd spent together back in the day.

I was a single-for-too-long, work-at-home (more than a little insane from the 24/7 Toddler Talk) mama by then, and man, did I jump on my friend's comment. Throwing the metaphorical door open wide, I was ready to do some rekindling.

Problem was that my friend – one of the most dedicated marital hold-outs in the history of smart and attractive males – was prepping for his impending nuptials. Surprise!

Par for my course.

A few heated e-mails later (my tantrums are legend) I finally understood what he meant.

From my dear Merriam-Webster:
rel•ish
noun \ˈre-lish\
a : enjoyment of or delight in something that satisfies one's tastes, inclinations, or desires <eat with great relish> 
b : a strong liking : inclination <has little relish for sports>

It's a real good thing that I finally figured out that relishing the memories certainly did not mean that my friend felt inclined to relive or rekindle the past. It's a good thing because I truly like his wife, for one thing. She is The One for my friend. It's a good thing, too, because he and I can continue to be friends. Real friends, the kind that can say not only that there's spinach between your teeth, but that while
we're at it, did you shower today? And no love is lost.

But that's what we tend toward, isn't it?
If we love it, if it makes us feel good, well, hell YEAH, we want it. Now. For real. In our face. Right?

Relishing is the digging of something. Not the doing.
Score one huge point for the wordsmith – but had it not been for my friend’s boundary-laying, it's a lesson that might still be hanging, uncaught.

Forward a few more years to now. My friend – let's call him The Editor Too – has a thriving marriage, a burgeoning music career (c'mon, let's just say it, Al), and a real zest with words. And he is bartering skills with me. I blab about his band's music and he reins me in literarily. My words, I mean.

Just in time, too, because The Editor that we've all come to know and love is taking a science sabbatical from sighing with resignation over guiding my attempts at prose. I see a white picket fence in his future, just like the one in his dreams.

So – meet The Editor Too.

One of the nicest things about being able to relish friends and other things for just who or what they are – and not for what you hope or scheme – is that you can continue to watch their glimmering light bouncing, at least until the point when you watch the prison bars dissolve.

And I may get a hogwire fence outta this one. (With permission granted by his excellent wife who has a lot of other household chores for The Editor Too to follow through on...)

And now for a little relish of a different kind...
______________________________________

Disillusionment Relish
aka White Girl Salsa


1/4 cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine

1/4 cup comino
1/4 cup chili powder 

1/4 cup fine diced green bell pepper
1/4 cup fine diced onion

1 to 2 tsp kosher salt

1-14oz can diced tomatoes, undrained


Brown garlic in olive oil.

Stir in comino & chili powder to make Mexican roux.

Add 1/2 of the onions & peppers.

Stir in about 1/2 cup of juice from canned tomatoes, 2 tablespoons at a time, stirring constantly.

You should have enough watery liquid to bring to simmer (if not, add more tomato juice from can).
Stir in about 1/4 of the canned tomatoes. Simmer uncovered about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Don't let it simmer all the way down to nothing (add more juice if necessary).

After 5 minutes of simmering, add salt, rest of onions & peppers and tomatoes. Bring to simmer point and turn off.

Serve warm or chilled.

A Gander If E'er There Was

Sittin on my porch looking at the haven I'm providing for snakes, waiting for morning's rays to evaporate the diamonds on the grass so I can assault this Garden of Eden with a petrol-powered blade-swingin monster. And thinking about sex.

Okay, Daddy, you can go ahead and scratch this particular post offa your list of things to read now.

Inspiration comes in all forms and at varying speeds. I guess sometimes, the spark that pushes creativity will sneak up on someone; not so much for me. I've always been floored, waylayed in a big way by -- okay, I'll say it -- men.

Hi. My name's Tracy and I'm a sucker.

I'll leave you to your own disturbed thoughts there for a minute. Then remember that I have family and even church friends who follow this blog.

Where did that connotation of that word come from anyway?

The meaning is gullibility.

Sociolinguistics was one of my favorites classes in college. Too bad you can't make a living as a sociolinguist. I guess this is as close as I can get -- amused by words and blathering on about them in public. (If you're like me, here's a nice little snackpage on our beloved Wikipedia...)

Take "gander" as an example.

There's "taking a gander" as in surveying that shin-deep yard of mine.

There's "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" in terms of all things being equal. And since my bigger self likes to try and hold on to the belief that what is, is, and therefore it's good, I wind up thinking "equal" is just a mindgame we play with ourselves anyway.

And finally, of course, there's the thoroughbred horse who won a race but was disqualified for being riderless. Go figure. (Watch what a spirited, albeit "a bit problematic" creature can do when nature and nurture combine just so, and the controls are taken off.)

The other day, one of my editors (yes, I did just use the plural form of 'editor') pointed out a difference in consequential yard care when comparing the burbs to the country. There, you get letters and fines, maybe even taken to court, for not mowing your lawn just so. My own H3 used to carefully mow the front "on the bias" -- so help me. (Some people are more afraid of broken rules than others.)

Here, though, the consequence of not keeping your green growin' stuff clipped short is one of your neighbors' calves being killed by a rattlesnake.

So far, I need both hands to count the number of new neighbors who've mentioned the unusually high abundance of long, slithering, poisonous creatures they've killed this year. Kinda funny, since none of them really know me yet... But then, there's been even more of my recent acquaintances who've assured me that a gun is a must-have item around these parts.

Now, I truly do love snakes and have no desire to do them harm, whether via blasted pellets or a hoe to the neck (do snakes have necks?), but I also don't want to be harmed by them. So I'm thinkin the answer is to not give the sneaky biters any deep stuff to hide in -- a little extra toilin' on my part, but that way I can see 'em as they pass through on to the grasses of the less vigilant.

"A gander if e'er there was," he said. [Editor's note: "...pretty sure that snakes are all neck."]
No, not him. Him.
Next?

Fewer Than 15 Minutes: My YouTube Moment

This is a story about perseverance, acquiescing, changing direction, and being okay with all of it.

I sing. Not so much in the shower, because I can't stand the decibels there, but in church, with a group of friends (led by H2). I sing while looking through the skylight, up at the pines that tower over our little church, over the congregation's faces. At least I'm no longer standing with my side to them like when I couldn't bear to see that there's an audience out there.

I used to do what's called "public speaking," back in the day when I was saving the world for a living. I did it for years and always hated it. So I stopped. If I had a nickel for every person who's tried to convince me since that I "can do it"... Nope, I tell them. Not interested.

But singing is another story. I won't ramble on too much about why and how, but singing is a whole lot like channeling someone or something else for me. It may be me who's standing up there, but it's not me who you're hearing.

Fortunately, The Editor likes my singing, or at least, he does a damned good job of making me think he does. Works for me.

One of the ways he harps, pardon me, bestows his admiration on me is with frequent suggestions that I "YouTube" myself.

Note: I don't play an instrument (other than an autoharp, poorly, which doesn't count in my book), so any video of me singing would necessarily be acapella. Sort of triples the fear factor for me and [Editor's note: what I imagine] the grimace factor [Editor's note: might be] for listeners.

I finally succumbed to his pressure one night. He was out of town and it'd been awhile since we'd had the pleasure of each other's company in a romantic way. I was alone while The Boy hung out with his dad elsewhere, and there was nary an item on my calendar. Plus, the mail had delivered one of those checks that puts my shopping cart over the beer edge.
Add to all that the fact that it was The King's birthday, and you have a recipe for YouTube-in.

I dutifully put my heart in my hand and recorded myself singing one of Elvis' sweeter songs. 

You'll never see it. The Editor never did either. Nor will anyone. The situation unraveled along these lines:

After countless takes, I uploaded a video, marked it private, and emailed a link to my favorite Editor. I clearly recall holding my breath upon clicking 'send'. The Editor being on a whirlwind tour of his mother's home, the time to sit still and listen to my sappy vocal meanderings never presented itself. I bolstered my confidence with the idea that he likely is attracted to other facets of my personality, so my YouTube debut wouldn't make or break this relationship. Then he spent an entire day and night wandering the skies of the midwest, after missing his first flight and playing the Stand-by Game. I instructed him not to view the link while in airports, but not because it was naughty. Eventually we learned that my designating the video "private" wasn't a good idea, since I'd sent him a basic link (which wouldn't allow him access.) Two days after uploading the still-unseen video, I retrieved a specially coded link and emailed it.

Finally, three days after I'd mustered the nerve to sing on camera and plaster the Internet with the results, The Editor let me know again that the new link wasn't working either. That notice came around the same time that he decided to share with me some details on his beloved ex-wife's penchant for sharing erotica with him.

Suddenly, my YouTube premiere seemed way out of place -- couldn't quite put my finger on the squirmy feeling I had inside, but I surely knew how to remedy it. I scrambled to the URL and clicked "delete" without a second thought. I felt clean again.

There're a whole lot of things that shouldn't be done or said. Then, there are a few things in this world that are simply better left done in the presence of another human. It's good to feel clear about that.

Bodhichitta Toward the Aging (or How I Spent the Night Before Valentine's Day)

Now and then, something happens -- or even better, a bunch of somethings all at once -- that brings me face-to-face with my karma.

Take the other night at the mall... (and I promise if you hang in there through this whole rant, you'll be visually rewarded at the end.)

The only thing I hate more than shopping is doing it at a mall. So, there are no reasonable explanations as to why I was in one in the first place the night before Valentine's Day. Let's just say I was under the influence of my Editor and we had some time to kill before a dinner reservation. Sort of like climbing a mountain, we went to the mall because it was there.

If it had indeed been a mountain that we'd climbed, I'm pretty sure what happened next equates to our ropes snapping.

After we got over how fun it was to use the "family" bathroom together, we were confronted by the incessant hum of the throng. He wanted to look at watches. I wanted to photograph the crowd. We were like a couple of raccoons at the patio door, gazing into both our reflections and this other world at the same time.

"Let's go try on expensive clothes," he suggested with gusto. His effort to steer me from mindlessly staring at people and to – as my mom always said – shut my mouth and stop catching flies worked as we headed directly to Nordstrom's, gliding first through the $300 skimpy aqua dresses to the shimmering whacked out shoes (I didn't even bother to look at those price tags...) I found myself speechless, other than managing an occasional 'oooh' here and there.

My thoughtful Editor, with his refined history and all, gently steered me through the colorful melange, echoing my scattered exclamations as if to validate my sensory intoxication. It was awful nice of him -- he could've just as well sniffed at me to get over myself.

"I know. Let's go find the cosmetics," he offered, knowing something of my secret history.

You'd never know it to look at me now, but I was once a purveyor of beauty. (Remember, I promised a reward for your patient reading...)

I did more than my share of face-painting in my early 20's, for fun and profit. While I was fine with an occasional grocery store foray sans color, my eyebrows were always ON and nary a dancefloor saw my face without a full mustering of the enhancement troops. During college, I worked in a finer department store for one of the finest brands. Years after that, I was in line for the red sportscar that comes before the pink Cadillac. I did a handful of friends' faces for weddings and photos. There are few remaining photos of my own personal canvas, but those that exist show a remarkably fresher moi.

I wasn't sure if I should take his suggestion personally or not, but my previously mesmerized mood immediately shifted into determined over-drive.

"Makeup, I can do!" I announced, and the Editor followed hurriedly as the scent led me directly down the escalators. "Just keep those women away from me."

Asking questions as he trailed behind, my valiant escort attempted to comprehend my babbling about years past and "those women" when I spotted my gleaming destination: the Cosmetics Territory. "There it is!" I beamed, and quickly surveying the multitude of dyed heads bobbing in, out, and between the shining counters, I determined an entry point where I could dart in, play with makeup, and never be spotted by The Enemy.

My plan was foiled by an unwitting, well-meaning Editor.

No sooner had we arrived at Wonderland's edge when one of Them, dressed in pseudo-clinical attire, smiled at us with outstretched arms. In less than a second, I was sizing up my sidestep. Those little vials in her hand were unmistakable, even if neither the Editor nor I understood her uttered greeting. Ever the gentleman, though, the Editor politely moved closer, inviting her to repeat herself.

"Cosmeceuticals?" she queried with manufactured warmth as she batted her eyelashes and waved the vials toward me.

The Editor may be polite, but he's no dummy. He turned away from her to face me, where I stood a good six feet from him and his new compadre, and in unison our eyes widened and jaws dropped.

"Cosmeceuticals?!" he repeated, barely stifling a guffaw in my direction, as I jammed to a speechless halt.

It's tough enough to let your white hair go natural before you're 40. Add to that years of nosy public queries about my “grandson” (aka my son) and the fact that some of the men in my life are considerably younger than I am, and well, you wind up with an overly sensitive middle-aged broad.

I made no effort at stifling myself as I spat "No! No!" in her direction, vehemently shaking my head and fairly frantically searching for an exit, which I found and headed swiftly toward. All I'd wanted was to play with makeup, not patch every crevice in my face.

It took us about an hour, a hasty retreat to the Jeep, and a soothing visit to a nearby park to recover from the assault. Well, okay, it took me that long. He was fine, even revved up by the cosmeceutical encounter, albeit jarred by the entire Consumers Gone Wild scene in the mall itself.

I rail against the Marketing Gods as a near-daily activity. I resigned long ago to accept Their dominion, all the while striving to live a life of conscious choices.  Still, I don't care what I might project -- this aging thing is kicking my ass.

And now, as promised, for your viewing pleasure: proof that I was once Cosmetic Royalty...


 

Fairytales at Home

My idea of a fairytale is pretty far down the potholed road from where it started.

On my grandmother's dresser -- well, I guess it's mine now -- is a five-year-old towheaded girl in a sundress, posing on the bench in front of an upright piano, smiling earnestly into the camera's eye.

She was a true believer in fairness, beauty, and happy endings. 

She played that piano by ear. For those of you not in-the-know, playing 'by ear' means unable to read music, yet able to clearly and with relative ease pick out the notes heard (and sometimes seen) inside the mind. When that little girl heard or thought of a tune, any tune, she sat down at the upright that lived first in her grandparents' home and later in her sister's room and picked it out, chords and all.

Eventually she had a little repertoire going, but she steadfastly refused lessons. Her mom knew better than to keep offering to pay for piano lessons -- she was a pretty stubborn kid, and her mom knew how to pick their battles. That's why the girl had no desire to sit next to anyone and be told exactly where to place her long fingers on the black and white keys. Her godmother had said she could be a surgeon with those fingers.

Nine years later, she sat next to the piano in her big sister's room, getting the third degree regarding their previous night's juvenile exploits. Someone was tinkling the keys in a repetitive pattern while a nervous foot tapped elsewhere. For once, she wasn't the perpetrator of Bad Doings. Try telling that to a parent who'd already seen most of the worst a kid could dish out. She was sentenced to grounding in her room for a month. The piano was given away.

She never went to medical school either.

Nearly 35 years later, I climb into the mismatched sheets and pull the hand-me-down boxstore comforter over my legs. The black perma-crinkled polyester nightie seems more fitting now than it did when H#2 gave it to a younger woman who was determined to have a baby. It's comfortable, no easy feat in this Land o' Constant Temperature Fluctuations. Besides, even if the thing has no shape at all, it does have spaghetti straps. And she still has nice shoulders.

Sitting against a bank of pillows, side-by-side with laptops opened, we say hello. He continues peering at gibberish-y code on the screen as his hand glides to my back.

A pinch.
"Hey!"
"It's a pimple," he says quietly, his other hand resting on the keyboard.
"Are you sure it's not a mole?!"
"No. Either way, it's okay," he reassures, returning fully to his work.

Most real stories are far better than fairytales.

If You Can't See the Stars, Shoot Out the Streetlights

You know your relationship is in the toilet -- or at least clawing its way across the linoleum -- when astrology starts looking good.

What we have here is a good example, I fear, of Junior High Karma.

See, in 7th grade, I developed a real penchant for The Mystical, which in my middle school's library equated to three books on The Tarot, numerology, and astrology. I read all three in short order. I kept one.

In my defense, this was the year following my first encounter with the sordid side of love. Boyfriend-o-the-year in my 5th grade was Terry. We were The Item -- and not just in our dungeon-like hallway (our formerly country school district was having a hard time keeping up with White Flight, which somehow translated to ghastly smelling mold in the decaying building.) Terry and I were the Brangelina of Alief Elementary.

It mattered not that I was nearly a foot taller than my preteen version of Bobby Sherman. We had Things In Common. We were fast. Both of us shone on the playground with our fleet-footed victories over every single other kid in school. Crowds gathered on the asphalt to watch our latest scrimmage exhibitions. His best, the 50-yard-dash. Me, I dug deep to pull out the Female Stamina and whup his butt in 100 yards. Every time.

We weren't just a school tryst, either. Terry and I would steal away to one of those nooks and crannies that only suburban wastelands can harbor: the townhouse parking lot next to the abandoned cow pasture. There, as the sun set after Hamburger Steak dinner, we kissed like movie stars -- slightly parted, puckered lips, smooshed together softly and then with a vengeance, for what seemed like an eternity. Then, at his insistence and in spite of my complaints about how itchy the grass felt, we'd wrestle (that's no euphemism there.) It seemed a heaven-made match. I did the usual toying-with-name-change things in my diary at home.

Alas, nothing good ever lasts, and the little boy who delighted in twisting my arm behind my back left me for a shorter woman. I hope he's 5'5" now.

Following months of pleading through song dedications in our 5th grade newsletter (I can still smell the mimeograph ink), I eventually rebounded. As do we all, yes? We put one foot in front of the other until stumbling on something else to distract our hearts. Or not.

By the start of 6th grade, I'd hit the skids. It was my first year of Middle School. I was No One. My illustrious, beautiful, and rich friends could play the piano, smile shiny and wide at all times, wear the latest lowcut jeans. My talents were nowhere to be found. And all because He had left me for Her. I spent that year careening toward Bad Girlville, and landed smack in the middle of it with both feet the summer before 7th grade.

In 7th grade, I found The Answer to my aching adolescence: astrology. All I needed to understand someone -- like, say, guys who are shorter than me -- was their birthchart, and -- voila! My first forays into a lifelong passion for psychology. My new avocation was fueled by my confusion over love. How could such a good thing go so terribly awry? Astrology told me: HE was a Libra. I am an Aquarian. :::strains of The Fifth Dimension dance in my head:::

I studied our library's font of mystical wisdom and kept the pink book (that included a real pack of Tarot cards.) Friends started to know me as The Go-To Girl for Fortune-Telling. Word spread far and wide that I could be found for readings in the library, when I wasn't smoking in the bathroom. I became Somebody.

Eh. Just like my desire to be Mrs. Terry, my passion for the occult waned over time. By 8th grade, I was into bigger and badder things all 'round.

I still find myself drawn, though, to the idea that stars, giant sources of power that they are, could influence the behavior, thoughts, and feelings, of what my editor refers to as "bags of soup" i.e. people. A few weeks ago, in an apparent fit of Facebook frenzy, I even signed up for some daily contact by an astrology site with a focus on relationships. Just for fun. You know. And yes, I'll admit that I've occasionally shared a few... pointers... from the site's snarkily written messages. Just for fun. I think I even have in one of my online profiles the very words, “Aquarius but it doesn't matter.” See? Fun.

But what happens with this Fun, inevitably, is nothing less than a marketing manual on how to draw in an otherwise intelligent woman. Especially if your company's got knowledgeable back-end tech going on.

Smart Woman ventures far enough into Shiny New Relationship to start seeing tarnish revealed. Formerly flowery emails become terse and stilted. Electronic cookies engage and return The Answers. Maybe. For more details, Smart Woman must follow up with an ether-chase, each webpage another piece to the blossoming puzzle that was love. Like any addiction worth its salt, there is no resolution, only increased drive.

I'm close to finding and cracking open that pink book again. For good measure, I think the box of cards is in the same drawer.

In the end, my past and present studies of astrology have taught me this: Libra men love to wrestle.