White-Trash Me

Is this really me, this white trash harpy, involved in a domestic dispute with her brother in the hallway of our father’s senior-citizen apartment building on the occasion of his 71^st birthday dinner? Is it really? It started at the dinner table, then my step-mother gently booted us outside, and now the neighbors are prairie-dogging their white-crowned heads out of their doors: “Is everything alright out here?” “Can I help you with anything?” I point to my father’s door and chirp, in blatant repudiation of what’s on my face I’m sure, “Oh, we’re OK, we’re just visiting Tim,” thus guaranteeing my dad exciting community laundry-room run-ins for the next few weeks. I am such a bitch.

We are fighting about photos from a trip taken over 20 years ago. I took them from my brother – he kept them in a drawer like a magic talisman – so that I could make a scrapbook of them. Of course I haven’t gotten to it yet. I’m still working on Bean’s baby album for chrissakes, and he just turned THREE. As in three YEARS. So fine, I scrapbook slowly. My brother’s drawer, my scrapbooking pile – who cares? Here’s who cares: my brother. Apparently.

It is my brother’s assertion that he has asked for the photos back many times and I have told him repeatedly that I’d return them and then not done so. He is in essence calling me a liar. It is my position that asking, “How’s that scrapbook coming?” – which is in general a running joke between The Uptight Yankee and me – does not equate asking for the photos back. If he’d asked for them back, I’d have given them back! They’re old photos! I can make copies! I mean, it’s 2011 – we have the technology. Jesus.

But he has not asked, and that is my complaint, that in fact he has not said much of anything to me in years. Here I was an eager fool, looking forward to seeing him – why? Why keep looking for the one thing someone can’t give you? - and this is what he chooses to do: lob an accusation of – what? Lying? Theft? Hoarding? Whatever it is, it was not what I had been looking forward to.

There are about 250 photos, from our drive around the country. The entire country. As in, the U.S.A. In a camper. There are many photos of trains (my brother was and is a railfan), mountains, canyons, famous buildings, a bell, a spaceship, a trout. A bison. Me in all my awkward 14-year-old glory. And then there are about a dozen photos of my mother.

They aren’t even good photos: she never photographed well and she knew it, hated having her picture taken. These photos show her from the side, from the back: her anxious face peering through the camper windshield as my brother and I huddle in the howling wind next to the Powder River Pass elevation sign. (9,666 feet, for those who are wondering.) Her from the back, silhouetted in the space between the two engines on the track at Promontory Point. She is glancing to the left, probably thinking, “Where are those ungrateful jerks?!” as my brother and I snicker and take her picture. Her from above, standing on some kind of observation platform atop some stupid waterfall. She’s not even looking at the camera, she’s looking off to the side.

Our mother, who died less than three years after these photos were taken: that is what my brother and I are fighting over. As the years go by my mother disappears more and more, leaving us scrabbling to grab at any remnant. To an outsider we appear to be grabbing at nothing – garbage, or flakes of ash that melt into oblivion as soon as we touch them – but to us they are precious fragments, shards of a life that used to be whole and real.

After our little hallway incident, I make new prints of all the negatives, then start sifting through the photos. I had started the scrapbook by sorting out the photos I wanted to use, jotting little notes on the back. Now they must all be re-sorted into original order so that I can compare new with old and – anyone with a sibling will immediately get this – make sure my brother and I get the exact same photos. The sorting process goes a little like this: train photo, train photo, train, train, train… bullshit, bullshit, bullshit… ah! Mom! Or: ah! Liberty Bell! But, in the soft snick and snap of shuffling and sorting prints, it is the photo of my mom standing in the mist from a waterfall that finally causes my breath to fail. There she is, her hair, her watch on her wrist, that shirt: she’s so real in this photo. But she’s so gone.

It’s these pictures that form the landmarks of the trip for me. Who gives a shit about the Grand Canyon? I can go visit it again whenever I want. It’s the person I want most who I can’t get, have, or reach, ever again.

Even after all this time, it’s so hard to understand why one person’s days stop while another person’s days keep on coming. I’m grateful for all these days, and places, and people – I am. It’s like my uncle used to say when I complained about the difficulty of waking up in the morning: “It beats the alternative, Greenie.”

I tell myself all the time that I can learn to live without anyone – that I have learned. [On the off chance that God is lurking in the blogosphere, though, I’d prefer not to test this theory in the case of one small blond boy, and one 41-year-old excellent husband. Just sayin’.] Witnessing my mother’s life wind down has undoubtedly been a source of strength for me: you know, a kind of morbid girl-power chant of “I made it through that so I can make it through anything!” The hard truth, though, is that I’m not really through it. Time does not always ease loss; sometimes time deepens the separation relentlessly. My mother is stranded alone on an island, growing smaller and smaller in my mind’s eye, while I am on the back deck of a ship chugging inexorably away from her. I keep waving and waving, but I know that soon she’ll be out of sight completely.

To ward off fits of pining for her, of an almost panic at the thought of her being all dead and alone, I try to tell myself that she is never alone - she must have a room in God’s crumbling mansion of a house, right? Maybe it’s next door to the room of a man who looks like Kevin Costner – she had a crush on him – and down the hall from her parents and brother. Maybe she is right now readying a room for a loved one I can’t foresee. All I know is that every day, I must leave her behind a little bit more; I have no choice. In this case, time does equal distance.

And oh, btw?

... Damon Salvatore wishes you a happy Valentine's Day too. [fans self madly, to no avail...]

Wishing you a Very Vampire Valentine's Day!

I'm kicking off this post with a special shout-out to Lost Rose, my Twitarded, secret gay lover *on the west coast*. Hold your horses there, JenniChicago, you'll always be my one true love... but even The Uptight Yankee calls Lost Rose my 'West Coast Jenni.' Truth.

What I mean to say is, I wouldn't be a Twilight fan without Lost Rose. I have had SO. MUCH. FUN. being Twitarded in her company. Words cannot explain. But photos can. Silly, weird, almost uncomfortably goofy photos could totally explain the situation. Photos like these, as a matter of fact...

Edward had always been a breast man...

YEAH, BABY!

This lace is scratchy... I don't think pink is my color.

Loving the view!

Does this satin rose make me look fat?

Annnnddddd here's the back story. Lost Rose and I are in possession - via shared custody - of the minis, commonly known across the Internet as Pocket Edward - PE - and Pocket Bella - PB. In fact, as PE is delighted to note, we have *TWO* PBs for our one studly PE.

I'm not sure how to say this... but... we also have Barbie-size 11-inch Twilight 'action dolls'. Or whatever the hell they're called. My Barbie Edward sparkles. Yes, it's true.

We like to pose the minis in compromising positions and then photograph them. This is starting to sound dirty!

Last year [see post on retro-blogging] we took them for a shopping spree at Penney's for Valentine's Day. We were basket cases. We chose Penney's in large part because a) they had suitably cheesy lingerie and b) the lingerie department was conveniently located near an exit for

speedy egress in the event that store security noticed us photographing two small dolls tucked in the bosoms of lingerie for sale. WEIRDOS!

There’s something about whipping out your dolls and camera in public that immediately leads to a feeling of being watched. We did the deed quickly and beat it right out that handy exit door. These photos are the fabulously juicy fruit of that excursion.

And they are also my gift to you, dear three readers, on Valentine's Day - after all, nothing says love like cheesy lingerie pics!

Retro-blogging. That's right, I started it.

I'm about to post some stuff I wrote a while ago. Or have been working on for a long time.

I’m the slowest blogger ever – I’m like the anti-blogger. In fact I think I just invented something, and it's called retro-blogging. If you’re supposed have a thought and then post it, well, I like to have a thought and then sit on it for a year.

Some of the stuff sucks [for me, hopefully not for you, my three dear readers]. I mean, hey, it was January, time to write some more about how much I miss my mom! Because guess what – you don’t get over the loss, motherfuckers!

Look, most of this stuff I put off posting because who *really* wants to write about their Botox-fueled vanity, their fear of their son dying, or their dead mom? It might make me cry and I FUCKING HATE that! I hate crying!

And then some of this stuff ... I have good intentions, but the milestone passes me by [see reference to slow blogging above] and then it would just seem silly. So in the spirit of retro-blogging, I bring you...

... last year's Valentine's Day! Just in time for this year's Valentine's Day! RIGHT ON, BITCHES!

The pinnacle (or is it nadir?) of absurdity

So the other day I had another obstruction day, or as I have come to call it, The Festival of Vomit. Yes, some mystery item that I ate, which I've eaten a million times without incident, because whaddaya know I have a pretty limited diet since I try to avoid things that motherfucking might get stuck, became lodged in the a) narrow part, b) scarred tissue or c) diseased area [depending on which doctor you talk to] of my small intestine and resulted in horror-movie pain, vomiting, yadda yadda yadda. BIG sigh. And I've been doing so well lately too.

But bear with me. This gets funny.

I also recently tried Botox. Hang on while I brace myself for a chiding from the three of you: OK. I'm ready, BRING IT....

OK, done. I know everything lame you can say about Botox. And I agree. But I have a perma-frown and I hate it and I've lived in San Diego for too long and I just thought: I'll try it. So I did.

They tell you it takes 7 - 10 days to kick in, but the initial injection left me with very slight swelling in the frowny area. Just enough, as it turns out, to kind of plump out the frown and give me a preview of what I'd look like without a frown for the first time in a decade.

And I liked it. So sue me, I liked it: I was looking forward to the effects of an injection of a deadly neurotoxin right between the eyes.

Then the Festival of Vomit kicked in and I kind of forgot about my frown. Or was frowning extra. Or just felt more desperate than a little wild animal with its leg in a trap somewhere. Until...

Until around about Puking #3, after which I was hanging my head over the sink, frantically rinsing the muck out of my mouth, when I glanced in the mirror and noticed the merest impression, a slight dent really, in the flattering post-injection, pre-neurotoxin-effect swollen area. At first I thought, Hunh. This will never do. And then I realized: it's from resting my head on the edge of the toilet seat. I tried smoothing it out. No dice. I moved on, busy with curling up on the floor, fighting off the shakes, reassuring the Bean that I was fine and didn't need a boo-boo strip, etc. (Bean after witnessing Puking #1, gazing into toilet beside me: "What that called?" Uhhhh....)

The Festival of Vomit final score was eight times in three hours; sometime after Puking #6 I glanced in the mirror and realized that I had so successfully and rapidly un-hydrated myself that the flattering anti-frowny fillerouter swelling, and the attendant toilet-seat-edge dent, was totally gone. Just like that [snaps fingers].

And I actually felt disappointed. Then I laughed. What's wrong with this picture!? What's wrong with someone who is so worried about how the outside looks that she's willing to get shots to improve it, while her insides rot and turn into Swiss cheese? How absurd is it to be worried about a cosmetic dent in your cosmetic Botox zone while you are puking your guts out because your small intestine is blocked? I mean really. To be disappointed that some sort of frown-curing, post-injection swelling is gone, because your intestinal obstruction dehydrated you... there aren't words for it.

This pretty much sums up how I feel during The Festival of Vomit.

PS:

Also during this Festival of Vomit I told myself that it wasn't as bad as previous occasions because vomit wasn't ALSO coming out of my nose. And then during Puking #7, it happened, and I was disappointed: Ah, THERE it is, the nasal spewing! And here I thought I would escape it! What kind of whistling past the cemetery is that? In retrospect it saddens me that I try to slice it so thin, try to sell myself this bill of goods: a Festival of Vomit is less worse, can't be quite that bad, if only I don't throw up out my nose.

Photo credit: The Exorcist, DUH. Via a site called Film School Rejects.

Caution: The Vampires You Are About To Enjoy....

... May Be Extremely Hot:

The Vampire Diaries Cosmic Love Trailer

The Vampire Diaries Season Two Trailer: Year of the Kat

Season 2 premieres Thursday night at 8 and I'm already counting the days... hours... minutes!

We are all always almost dying

This happened just over a year ago, and it's taken me that long to get up the gumption to post it where anyone else MIGHT read it.

****

Bean could have died the other day – but isn’t that true of all of us? On the one hand, it scared the shit out of me, and on the other hand, I tell myself – well, did he REALLY almost die? Am I being too dramatic? He didn’t suffer an injury or an illness, his heart didn’t stop, he didn’t need CPR. But he ran out into the street - the very busy street, the very large street in front of Lost Rose’s house - and could so easily have been squished under the tires of some speeding car. What would have been the tipping point? One more second? One more car? How close is too close?

He had knocked over a fan in Rose’s living room, breaking the cage-like cover loose. I was fixing that. Rose went into the kitchen and in passing Bean she said, jokingly, “Now, don’t go outside!” I clicked the fan blade cover into place and looked up: no Bean… but hadn’t he just been rightthere? The front door was open, and I thought, oh please don’t be outside. I ran outside calling his name, I ran across the porch to the corner of the house thinking, oh please let him have gone around the house. But of course he didn’t, of course he just plowed across the lawn and down the driveway and was capering about on the blacktop shoulder of the road, inches from the traffic lane. With the sun shining down on him, running in circles, waving his arms, giggling, delighted to have gotten out of the house and pulled one over on his mama. I ran – I ran so fast I ran right out of one of my sandals. I don’t even remember running. I am not a runner. I joke that I only run if someone is chasing me but now I really know: I run for Bean.

People say all the time that in an emergency they froze: they felt their feet were glued down, that they couldn’t run, that they were underwater or in slow motion. Not me. I didn’t feel the time it took to get across the lawn to Bean – I saw him and then I flew, or leapt, and then I was holding him in my arms. I doubled over with my baby folded in my middle and sobbed out loud. It was horrifying. A man had stopped in the center turning lane and was about to get out of his car to grab Bean when Rose and I came flying out the front door. He was nice about it – I would have been yelling, and maybe I wanted him to yell, felt I deserved to be yelled at - but he just wanted to make sure we were all right.

The rush of adrenaline and fear was so acute that I had the shakes – shaky hands, a quivery back, jelly knees – for a good two hours. When I got safely home and Bean was asleep, I downed a shot of tequila. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid as to let my child – my only child, my precious, treasured, beloved child – wander onto a busy street. But could I have done more? Of course I could have left the broken fan and kept my eyes glued to my child, but who can anticipate at any time in which direction he will break? He is in constant motion and after awhile you just get used to it. You try so hard, you think you are a good mom, you think you keep an eye on your kid, but it turns out: you don’t. You can’t. No one can operate at Threat Level Red or DEFCON 1 every second of the day – and so when you think you are paying attention but you really aren’t, your baby could get killed.

What stabbed me about watching him standing in the road was how unaware of danger he is – he was so happy to be dancing around on asphalt meant for cars and not for little feet, and I felt like all the danger was thrust on me and Rose because we knew. But as I considered it later, I thought, none of us really knows. We are all going to die, and no one can protect us, and not one of us knows when it’s coming. We all know this but we stuff it down, ignore it, and move on. It’s the deal we make with fate in order to get out of bed and face up to life every day. We are all always almost dying. We are all just standing in the sunshine – there’s no guarantee that you will ever be more than you are at this very moment.

Sometimes the loss of someone you love makes you grateful for what you do have in life – but in this case the gift of this one sweet boy has made me acutely aware of all I stand to lose.

Bean on the day he wandered out into the road - looking at this picture makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me want to run into the other room right this second where he is [not] napping and gather him up into my middle all over again, as though he's still in danger in this very moment.

Also as a postscript, Lost Rose's broken screen door latch was fixed the same day by her husband, so now he CAN'T wander out the front door even if I'm not watching him like a hawk.