letters - I write letters

Every one in a while I get all up on my high horse and decide to write a few letters (or in this case, e-mails) to complain about what I perceive to be the great wrongs of the world.

My first topic for today is the scientology tent at the Wy Co Fair, whose members have repeatedly and somewhat aggressively tried to get T and I to come in to their tent for a "free stress test". I did some reading up on scientology and came up with this and this and a lot more really frightening stuff (some unfortunate "guests" at the Fort Harrison Hotel). So, no, I don't want a stress test thanks. It's not that I don't want the fair to allow them to have a tent, 'cause I believe in free speech and freedom of "religion" but I definitely think it would be nice if they would get that tent off the main drag and ask the cultists to stop using their used-car pressure tactics to drag people in to their purple kool-aid world.

Topic of daily outrage #2: the sextacular overhaul of the Speed Channel by FOX execs who decided that Leann Tweeden was a serious journalist. Not only that, they disguised their two "real" journalists as cupcakes -- all four female personalities are dressed like they're ready for a night of club hopping. In the kind of outfits that would make normal girls like me glare and mutter "skanky ho" under our breath. And don't even get me started on the other stuff they're programming now -- like "Texas Hardtails". Horrible, horrible, horrible. Some loser cussing at his mother. Wow. You know, someone at FOX accidentally came up with a good show: NASCAR:360. But they shoot only 7 or 8 episodes a season. Hey FOX! Stop wasting your money on Texas Hardtails and NASCAR Nation and just give us a full 36 eps of NASCAR:360, idiotas! (There's my obligitory Spanish for the day, since I'm trying to brush up and all).

Topic #3: Why does every neighborhood in KC have a nicer grocery store than mine? When I had to provide fresh fruit and pastries for breakfast two weeks ago I had to drive 10 miles to the next closest Price Chopper to get something I could trust as fresh. No one seems to believe that people in Wy Co want or deserve anything decent. I mean, this is a county that until 5 years ago had zero services -- unless you shopped exclusively at thrift, dollar and liquor stores. Well, now that I think about it, perhaps all the bases were covered. Now we have a multi-million dollar state of the art racing facility, hotels, restaurants and retail only 5 miles away... but still two of the crappiest grocery stores in existence. Is it too much to ask to have a grocery store checker tell me my total, use the words please and/or thank you and possibly look me in the face? Or have a store that has a decent bakery, deli and maybe even some prepared foods that don't look crusty?

Whatever. Three e-mails and one blog later I feel therapuetically cleansed. I encourage all of you to write one e-mail or letter to someone who has done something stupid to you or near you. You'll feel better too.

coming home

My self-esteem has been tied to a lot of things: my looks, my weight, my job, my education, my accomplishments, my site meter. Let's throw another thing on the pile, shall we?

That's right, folks, it's time for the OGHS class of 1985 20th High School reunion.

"Okay, well, I'll see you at the 'I've peaked and I'm kidding myself' party." -Paul, from Grosse Point Blank

Two of my favorite movies actually take place around reunions: Grosse Point Blank and Beautiful Girls. If you want a really enjoyable night, watch the movies and skip your reunion. I think the reunion in GPB is the funniest reunion scene in a movie ever. Unfortunately I am not showing up to my reunion with John Cusack, which makes the real thing less funny. On the other hand, I don't anticipate anyone trying to kill me while I'm there. Although I may wish they would just go ahead and do so at some point during the evening.

That's right, I will probably go. Not for the game, tailgate, etc. But maybe for the reunion itself. Why? I have no idea. I'm just curious about how things have turned out. While we're here on earth our greatest resource is time. So I wonder how people have used it and what it says about them. And is time the great equalizer? Will the cliques flatten out now that we're 20 years older? Will people who didn't give me the time of day walk up to me like I'm a long lost best friend? Possibly. These things can get wierd.

And finally -- can I lose 20# by October?
(apologies to the Lobster -- I guess I'm just another weak woman chasing after the societal ideal.)

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
- The Bangles (by way of Simon & Garfunkle)

Wicked in Chicago

Another thing off my list! I saw it with Ana Gasteyer in Chicago. The Oriental is a beautiful theatre and the show itself was so terrific! Nosebleed seats just $43! And the tea shop next door has great Toll House bars.

See more progress on: see wicked

Murcia me, part dos

This is the process by which a whim becomes reality.

1. get birth certificate
2. get photos
3. apply for passport
4. book ticket with carefully hoarded frequent flyer miles
5. call A and see if she minds my crashing in on her
6. figure out the rest when I get there

I think I am going to go to Spain. Murcia, more specifically. Eh, why not?

A is going to spend a semester in Spain-- she leaves 9/2. I am the only person in my family that doesn't have a passport and hasn't gone abroad. T and I talked and I have decided to go and visit her there this fall. A little crazy but I'm going to make my opportunity. I'm thinking of late October/early November -- a weekend in Madrid, a weekend in Barcelona and the rest of the trip bumming around Murcia, Valencia and Alicante.

Wow, I am totally nuts. But very psyched. I just talked to her and she's happy too-- she said she'd be about ready for someone who speaks English -- someone from home.

Planning a trip = better than mulling over all the crummier things that have happened this summer.

As far as that goes, T has a job: he starts next Monday. Back to some kind of normal life, I think. I have definitely had enough stress for one year. We had a "date" on Friday night... and had a really good time. We haven't been arguing but we've been having some very real conversations about us and about the future. I don't know where we'll be a year from now but I think-- I hope-- we'll be OK.

Hasta luego! (I must brush up on my very rusty high school Spanish!)

looking at old pictures

I am sarcastic
I am shy
I assume that I will not be included in the conversation
I assume that I will always be the one to call first
I assume I will always be the one to give in first
I am broken, healed over and scarred
I am beginning my middle age and I'm scared I haven't made enough of my life so far.

I am advice giver, Miss Fix-It, picture straightener
I am always sympathetic and surprisingly generous
I was a little girl caught up in the roiling mess her parents made
the one no one was watching, forgotten for a while
I was well-loved but never easy to love

I am trying to please everyone and in so doing no longer please myself
I am self-centered but unable to stop feeling guilty about it
I look at these pictures and I see myself in all my variation
the camoflauge of hair and clothing
and I look adjusted, I look like a normal kid
a student, a girlfriend, a happy bride. I am fatter, sometimes thinner.
What I am is not in these pictures.

**I would really like to put away whatever has been bothering me for these last 6 or8 months but I just don't know how. I pick at these feeling every day like picking at a scab until it's scarred. I do that too-- a nervous physical quirk that has become an emotional bad habit.

The Dog Bares It's Teeth

I watched this movie night before last. While not quite as strange at Frau Lobster's ordeal with Koyaanisqatsi, I wasn't quite ready for this. It was strange.

T and I have been on a Nicole Kidman flick kick lately and this was one we taped on IFC, one of the 220 channels we rarely watch. (We're simple folk, we like the Food Network and the Speed Channel. Within 10 minutes, T was up and on his way to Lowe's but I watched for the whole 3 hours. Fascinated. In a horrified kind of way.

If not supported by a magnificent cast including Nic, Paul Bettany, Ben Gazzara, Patricia Clarkson, Lauren Bacall, Stellan Skarsgard, Phillip Baker Hall, Blair Brown etc. this film would have been completely, Uck. I believe real movie reviewers use this term all the time: Uck.

No one wants to look in the mirror, Lars von Trier.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this movie after it was over -- as much as I remember thinking about The Piano. This is not a summer blockbuster. It makes your brain hurt.

Some artists paint pictures that are beautiful and soothing. Like Monet, the college watercolor print king. And then some artists paint ugly things because -- well, life can be ugly. Something like "Order No. 11", Guernica or anything by de Kooning. I guess they're all good in their own way.

If you get a chance, watch it sometime. Or if you've seen it, let me know what you think.

overdosing on cat metaphores

Wooo! Replacing personal drama (for a short time, anyway)... work drama.

Not in a bad way though. I guess it's time for me to grow up a little and set about mending some fences, letting the real me out a little. I don't know if it's too late or if it's even important for some people here to like me but it sure couldn't hurt. And oh yeah, that means SOCIALIZING with people I hardly know. Please kill me now. One of my dirtiest secrets is that I'm actually sort of shy -- at least around strangers. (Some of you guys better stop laughing or that Coke will come out your nose-- and ooh, does that burn.)

The last three years haven't been a total loss. I think a few people 'round here like me better than they used to. I think a few actually like me.

Truth? I want a promotion and I need to play nicey-nice to get it done. So I'm doing the grown up thing and trying to let some people around here know me a bit better. Some people know me fine -- more than they want to probably-- most don't. And a few think they do but don't at all. 'Cause if they did they would know I'm a pussycat.

Huh, chasing a "new" job when everything else in my life seems so nuts sounds, well, nuts, even to me. I could just let this sleeping cat lie -- it does have sharp teeth and vicious needle-like claws. Going after this thing could potantially mess up one of the best jobs I've ever had. But I don't think I can be happy unless I do it.

There's a great metaphor for my life: when I "play" with my cats at home I tickle and pull and pick and poke at the sleeping felines and then duck the teeth and claws when they wake up pissed off. Then I like to be really nice to them. It freaks them out. I get a lot of bloody scratches -- but they haven't killed me yet.

pictures at last

They finally made picture posting so easy any idiot can do it. So here's my favorite place from the past year...

breathe

Some days I feel all right -- some days not. I am beginning to wonder about the depression again or if I just have a self destruct button in my brain somewhere. I'm shocked at how insecure I am for this stage of my life. All those magazines you read talk about how older women-- particularly those approaching 40-- are supposed to be so confident and together. More lies.

I called The Cat yesterday because I decided to go and see her while I'm in her neck of the woods for a trade show in August. Granted she was feeding horses and I was in Wal Mart but I still got the feeling that I was imposing somehow. I'll go anyway. But I'm not sure she meant it when she said I was welcome. It's not just The Cat. All my friends and family are probably tired of my drama. I am.

music I've been listening to:
"You can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
and life's like an hourglass glued to the table,
no one can find the rewind button, girl,
so cradle your head in your hands -- and breathe"

T has an interview this morning. He doesn't act very happy about it. I think he would like to stay home for good but of course we can't afford it so he needs to go back soon. I'm hoping he'll feel better about it when he's finished.

Still feeling small pangs of panic about Chicago -- still don't know why. Was double dog dared yesterday to arrive at Midway with no transportation and just wing it. This is against my nature and this double-dog dare-er knows it. Yet I've resolved to accept the dare and just figure it out when I get there. I can always fall back on the train if I must.

"breathe -- just breathe."

How ironic that the two things that keep us going -- breath and a heartbeat -- are involuntary. If we could just stop, would we? Are those things designed to be involuntary by a God who knows how hard things can be sometimes -- and how little we might want to continue?

inhale
exhale
thump
thump
thump

the weather report

Sunny and hazy
Fair to partly cloudy
Unseasonably cool and dry.

This is where four seasons meet
Unpredictable forecasts
My specialty.

You try to read my weather
As if I were a map
As if it will matter.

Like good Midwesterners
We always live with
Whatever will come.

let's go camping!

Huh, everyone else on my blogroll (except the lobster) has apparently been participating in their real lives and not the blogworld. One supposes I could do the same and I intend to do just that. I am going camping, so there.

I mean, who cares that only one of us has a job? let's go camping!
Who cares if we're driving a vehicle that gets 12 miles to the gallon towing and diesel is $2.37? let's go camping!
Who cares that the lake may have flooded out the campground? let's go camping!

I have books, firewood, chocolate and diet Dew -- T has beer, a movie he taped, RV magazines and peanuts in the shell.

It's time to get out of Dodge for a couple of days. Maybe fish, maybe walk, maybe talk, maybe just watch the world go by while we do nothing. Sounds nice.

camp memories

Did everyone who ever went to summer camp hate it? I've been reading "Sleepaway" and most of the essays are not the loving tributes to summer that I expected but rather diatribes on childhood cruelty. I'm a little disappointed.

As both a camper and a camp counselor, I had the time of my life.

As a camper I attended a church camp in southern Missouri. The first summer I found out I was going to go I was probably 11 and my dad was completely broke but someone (the church? my best friend's parents?) came up with the cash and off I went. I remember my first day there, running like a maniac for two hours before dinner, then off to the dining hall to eat. During grace I told the Tabby Cat I felt sick, or "funny" I think I said. I promptly passed out, no doubt from the heat and the excitement and lack of water. I was terrified they would send me home for being defective. But they didn't. I spent a happy week there, catching skinks in the showerhouse, hiking, swimming, playing four-square and crushing on boys.

In fact in my two years there I netted two boyfriends, Andy E, a dark haired boy who gave me my first real kiss and J.B., a boy from our hometown over whom the Cat and I got in to a major row. Our car ride home was miles of set chins and crossed arms and I still remember her mother chewing on us all the way over which was more important -- the boy or the friendship. By the time we got home I had conceded the boy so I could keep my friend. I chalked up two valuable lessons that summer: 1) in a fight over a boy, the Cat would always win and 2) friendship is, in fact, more important than boys. To wit, the boy has long passed in to history but 26 years after that fight, the Cat and I are still going strong.

After two happy summers at Galilee, I wanted to become a counselor and pursued a job with Camp Fire the summer I turned 18. The first year I just missed being hired but the second year I got the job and a few days before I was to leave for the camp, my dad gave me a $300 Chevy Chevette, which I had to repair, license and learn to drive before leaving. After installing a working horn, sewing up the headliner, pop-riveting aluminum panels under the pedals to cover the hole in the floor and attaching some seat covers, I was off to camp.

When I arrived, I walked up to the dining hall, stepped in and met my fate at the registration table. Maybe that sounds over-dramatic but that one moment really did change my life. The first person who greeted me at Camp Towanyak would also become my first husband. I can actually remember what he wore: jeans and a "Free Johnny Dangerously" t-shirt. We flirted immediately. It eventually settled into friendship and stayed that way for that summer and the next. In our final summer at camp (it was the camp's final summer as well) we were engaged.

In those three summers at Towanyak I would gain a husband, two female friendships that survived both my ill-advised marriage and predictable divorce, the skills of fire-building, camp singing, drink mixing, practical joking, rappelling, problem solving and french braiding the hot, sweaty hair of ten year old girls. I held hands with kids who needed me and the people I needed. I was punished, rewarded, serenaded, cold-showered, pranked, befriended and loved. As I fought off the inexhaustible hands of time shoving me toward adulthood, the camp fought off the bony fingers of suburban sprawl. We both lost. But some little parts of the girl and the camp are still inside me.

WoHeLo.

Babies and puppies

I went out to my dad's yesterday for our family Fourth of July "fish fry" -- which used to mean my dad fished all year with all his buddies and then fried up the haul on Independence Day. Now it apparently means hot dogs and store bought catfish nuggets, which is OK too. It's a chance to spend time with my immediate family: my half-brother and half-sister and their kids, stepkids and grandkids.

I come from a modest background, which is my way of saying there are elements of my family that sometimes appear -- a bit redneck. This causes me no end of frustration when I'm in larger family gatherings because I have little to nothing but blood in common with almost everyone. They think I am overeducated, stuck-up and weird because I don't have kids. I have to admit I get a bit holier-than-thou over the casual out-of-wedlock breeding practices of my cousins and their kids -- something my brother and sister and I had managed to avoid, up to this point.

I am sad to report that my brother's unmarried teenage stepdaughter recently bore a beautiful baby girl and is living at home on WIC and support from the "daddy". This baby girl is a delicate, gorgeous thing, tiny toes and fingers and tufts of red hair. The baby is loved and doted on, primarily by my brother and his wife.

I did not hold her but held instead a puppy that was visiting with a friend of my step-niece. I can deal with puppies. In fact I often find I like animals a lot better than people. Puppies are so cute but they never forced anyone to get married or drop out of high school. Puppies are pretty safe.

I realize it sounds like I hate babies. I don't, actually hate babies or even this one baby. It's just the concept I hate. She is a foreshadowing of my next grand nephew or niece, due in late October to my 17 year old nephew and his girlfriend. My nephew is going to be a senior next year and is currently suffering his way through National Guard boot camp in Fort Benning, GA. This lovely young man has managed to make two huge errors in just a brief amount of time: knocking up another high schooler and simultaneously joining the one branch of the armed forces most likely to get him killed in Iraq. I'm sad, not because I thought my family was better than the rest of our extended family but because my nephew is actually a great student who wants have something in life and get the hell out of small-town Missouri. Now I'm afraid he never will. And if he does I'm afraid my father's youngest grandson will promptly become the target of a roadside bomb in some Iraqi backwater. Where oh where is the ctrl+alt+delete for life?

I couldn't hold that baby girl, which officially makes me a bitch. I couldn't help but resent my nephew's girlfriend who got pregnant (even though I know my nephew got her that way, duh) and the recruiter who fast-talked a 17 year old in to boot camp. That makes me a bitch, too. Oh and I really had a bitch moment when after I saw the baby, my brother said "Just think, in just a couple of years it will be your turn". Meaning I'll be a grandmother in just a couple of years? Oh hell no. I went off on that for about 5 minutes, until he wished he'd never said anything.

I realize I have no control over my girls' lives past a certain age and even at this point I know that control is illusory at best. But I wouldn't wish babies on either stepdaughter for many, many years to come. Maybe they'll be the ones who postpone family for a successful career and a healthy marriage first. Just maybe they'll travel and live a little before turning their lives over to child-rearing. Maybe they can be the ones who marry Mr. Right the first time, after great contemplation and prayer and don't get divorced. And maybe when they do have kids it will be with the right guy at the right time and for all the right reasons.

My wish for them, for now, is that they also stick to the puppies.

Chicago solo

Having led a life of very little adventure I have to take it where I can get it. In 1992 or 1993 I took my first business trip to a convention in San Francisco. I was blessed with a fatherly publisher who both insisted on my going and also insisted I take off early in the afternoons to explore the city. Having someone along for company wasn't an option so I studied the street maps and spent my afternoons walking and riding to Fisherman's Wharf, the beach and other scenic parts of the City by the Bay. Since that time I've never been afraid to do anything alone -- travel, see movies, hike trails, whatever. I don't travel alone often anymore but I'm usually OK with it when I must.

In two weeks I'll be going alone to Chicago for a 3-day conference. I'm treating myself to a performance of Wicked since I'm a Gregory Maguire fan and read the book some years ago. Makes perfect sense, right? Truth is, I almost didn't book the ticket. A small part of me is nervous about traveling alone and shy about going to the theater alone. Maybe it's because the last time I was in Chicago I was quite, quite lost and it was late and dark. And I didn't have exact change for the train. And people are strange when you're a stranger. And small parts of me still feel young and insecure. And lonely.

But forge ahead I must. I would hate myself for missing the opportunity of either the conference or the performance. Oddly, in a week or so I'll be sending A to do the same thing -- travel alone to Chicago, make her way to Michigan Ave and the Spanish Consulate to turn in her visa application. It's a day trip -- up in the morning and back at night.

She's afraid too but she's learning, as I have, not to let it show.

Happy Fourth

The dust seems to be settling, with great effort on T's part and some on mine too, though more on his side. I'm actually looking forward to getting home and spending the weekend at the races -- 2 tomorrow (ARCA and Craftsman Truck Series) and Indy cars Sunday. Then my dad's fish fry on Monday.

I'm able to articulate now what I feel and what my plan is, as much as any person can profess to have a plan since we never know what the world will wing our way next. I've said my peace and he's said his and we're still there, so it's a start. I don't know what tomorrow will be but today's all right.

So on to other things ...

I've always loved the Fourth, ever since my mother gave me a big box of fireworks for my birthday one year. It's deep summer, still light until nearly 9 and all the right smells are there -- fireworks, fruit, grass, sun tan lotion. Add to that chili cheese fries, hot rubber and race car engine fumes and I'm about as happy as a Midwest girl can get.

Happy Independence Day, dear readers, family, friends. I hope this weekend brings you your own particular kind of joy.