Trailer Park Karma

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.