Airing of Grievances 2014 – A LOT of Problems

Festivus:  A holiday invented by Frank Costanza, a character on the hit 1990s sitcom Seinfeld. Its symbol is the aluminium pole. Traditional Festivus activities include the Feats of Strength (typically ending with someone in tears) and the Airing of Grievances (also often ending in tears).

While I have erected a Christmas tree and shopped for things people don’t need and participated in the Baruch Atah Adoni-ing and lighting of Hanukkah candles, I haven’t an aluminium pole. This year has felt like a Feat of Strength so there’s that.  All I have left to accomplish is the Airing of Grievances. Buckle up.

Facebook posting of disgusting images. Bugs unearthed from human bodies. Dead deer posed to appear as if they were delighted to have been slaughtered. Recipes involving Velveeta. Abused animals. Taylor Swift’s eyebrows. Where the fuck is the decency?

Buzzfeed quizzes. One was entertaining. Two were silly, but okay. Three or more means you don’t understand how the internet works. You don’t have to punish us all by posting all of your results on Facebook? Lord. It’s like pooping or masturbation. Everyone does it sometimes, but we don’t need to read about it every single time.

Life hacks. Life is supposed to be complicated, weird, and difficult. And sometimes a toilet paper roll is just a toilet paper roll.

Denying injustice. If you’re doing this, you need to experience a little yourself. That usually brings people around.

Politicizing everything. I heard a guy at Kroger accuse a woman of being a crunchy, tree-hugging Jesus hating liberal because she had the temerity to ask where the Greek yogurt was.  “What?!” he screamed. “Isn’t American yogurt good enough for you?” I rushed to her aid, tossing her the Black Cherry Chobani, hitting him with my bag of organic apples and informing him that Jesus was a liberal.

The Marshmallow World. Thanks, Target. Way to ruin a song.  Also, you’re not helping my desire to cut the demon sugar from my diet because just the word marshmallow turns me into Homer Simpson.

Shaming of today’s youth because they spend too much time indoors staring at screens.  Oh sure, you played with sticks and ran around barefoot and got spanked and you turned out just fine. And today’s kids are horrible because they have iPhones and tablets and video games and never suffer any punishment? Spare us. Ten year olds aren’t issued AmEx cards. They don’t ride their bikes to the Verizon store to purchase their expensive, sunshine and fresh air-depriving toys. Their parents won’t let them ride their bikes out of the neighborhood for fear of strangers snatching them.

If today’s kids are a mess, it’s our fault. We’ve failed them not the other way around.

Corporate media.  We broke up a couple of years ago, but that hasn’t lessened your influence on the world and hence me, damn it. Stop frightening people. You’re making us impossible to live with. We fear each other, hate each other and believe that corporations want what’s best for all of us. We’re dumber, poorer, sicker, and more hateful. Congratulations. You have a wretched audience. That must feel awesome.

Faux country music. Did you just sing Hey, girl again? Put down that Bud and climb on down from that tailgate. Dolly Parton wants to deliver a nice, ring-encrusted punch to your nutsack, bro.

Posting items to social media without vetting them or even reading them. This is so simple. Read the article you’re linking. Check its date. Google can provide an assist in not looking like a moron. So can Snopes.com. So says the woman who repeated the Jay Cutler fired hoax article, but hey, I didn’t post it for all the world to see so I can still wrap myself in this swell fur of sanctimony.

Pharmaceuticals. I listened to the book STATION ELEVEN and one scene contained a description of a young woman going cold turkey off Effexor, the anti-depressant I took for over two years. I flashbacked to achy joints, brain blasts and the frustration of counting out capsule granules to wean myself off that poison. It comforted me to know that my experience wasn’t just my imagination. If that author could so accurately describe those reactions, it must be true. We’re pumping these chemicals into our children’s bodies (guilty as charged) without much thought about how it will all end.

Oversimplification.

Pumpkin, pretzel, and other food fads.  No more pumpkin spice toothpaste, pretzel bread waffles, or kale. Shut up and let me eat my two tablespoons of coconut oil in peace.

Taking umbrage at the wishing of seasons greetings and happy holidays. As long as no one is tacking on you asshole, you really should just get some perspective. The person wishing you happy holidays or seasons greetings is being inclusive not insulting. I wished someone a Merry Christmas and he thanked me for “saying it right.”  I repeated myself with a huge grin. “Merry Christmas, you asshole.”

Bad Grammar. Spoken is bad enough, but if you are lazily reposting shit on Facebook that has grammatical and punctuation errors, it is time to reevaluate your life.

Death. You’ve shown up too many times this year. We’re giving you 2015 off.

Pictures of your cat on the internet. This is said while standing in front of a mirror. Also, this is not a euphemism. Although it could be.

Potato chips. What are they putting in them now? Meth? I spent my first 48 years jonesing almost exclusively for sugary treats and now I’ve become a craver of the salt and grease? Life is so unfair. And while I’m at it – Wheat Belly, Wheat Brain, and this horrible Wheat Cellulite. I’m paunchy, stupid and dimply.  Hawt.

Dystopian anything. Please stop. You’ve got me considering the benefits of becoming a Prepper and I doubt I could last a day without my Roku. I consider my pour-over coffee pot roughing it. The best place for me at the end of the world will be ground zero.

Social media in general. Clearly, I need to walk away, but then what? Talk to my family, my boyfriend, my co-workers? Sit for 45 seconds at a stoplight without being entertained? And what about seeing things simply for what they are instead of imagining them with a Lo-Fi filter and tilt shift? I’m getting hives.

Jerks who want to dictate what should and should not be on social media. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Lisa.

Me. I’m the biggest problem I have. I’m in my 50th year and can’t pull it together. I hope to spend the next 50 years not crashing about like a mental and emotional ox and instead do some good, let go of ridiculous expectations, be less insecure and judgmental, more direct, and relaxed.

The truth is I’ll settle for becoming less bothered by grammatical errors and year end lists.

Your turn. Let loose.

Not L.A.

What do you do when your heart is in two places?

You kick stones. You find your place at the bar and you try not to pull that face. You stop and start and hope no one notices.

What do you do when the new groove resembles the old groove?

You dance because if you don’t?  We all fall. Down.

What do you when your options narrow to a trickle and the finger of blame points back to you?

You pinch that place above your nose where the headache centers and wait for things to pass.

What do you when you can’t sing a note, but the song is there?

You turn it over to the talented ones because sometimes they can tell your story better than you can.

Winged

I’ve alighted again. For how long? It’s anyone’s guess.

I’m back in my hometown and happy to be here. Even so, most items remain boxed. The trunk of my car has become a weird closet holding bits of an old life. Root around in there and you’ll unearth boxed shoes, pocketbooks in protective sheaths, a can of WD40, books, a ziplock bag of utensils.

I have no idea what I’m doing.  I could be on the lam without much effort, but don’t have any firm plans to break the law. It’s not exactly chaos though. Work is stable. Beer is stable. Exercise is consistent. (Pauses to consider the irony, shrugs, examines sore foot.)

Physically I’m recognizable. The hair is long and silver. The breasts too large. The hazel eyes are more feathered at the corners, but that’s to be expected. It’s been a long year.

In other ways, the cocoon has been shed. I spend enough time at the American Legion that the bartenders know my drink. I can tell you on what night you can shoot pool for free at the bar on Main Street (Wednesdays). I’m relearning Euchre. To great concern and the open consternation of MathMan and the children, I’ve taken to listening to country music. I hear whispers of intervention.

Life is exploding with characters. I want to collect them all, write them down, get their stories just right. I think of my own story and wonder when will it be not so damn raw? I poke and poke and come up with too much feeling, too little sense.

I spend most Wednesdays convinced that it’s Thursday. I don’t think it has anything to do with playing pool for free. It’s because I’m twisting myself into knots wishing for the weekend so I don’t have to answer the phones. Answering the phones means there’s a damn good chance I’m about to invite someone’s despair into my ear.

“Law office, may I help you?”

And then the words come. Sometimes faltering. Sometimes tear-stained. Angry. Afraid. The callers who want to know right off the bat how much this is going to cost are the easy ones.

Working in an office that deals mostly with divorce wasn’t the brightest idea coming on the heels of busting up my own family. I have a genius for putting myself in ridiculous and painful situations.

So I’m listening to the audio version of Naomi Wood’s Mrs. Hemingway and there’s this line that goes something like this…..

Hadley, his first wife, to Hemingway:  You create these messes for material.

I listen, rewind, listen again.  This is Chuck to remind Bill to shut up.

I hear you, Universe. But I’m still looking for that compass.

 

Bad patient

There’s never a good time for a panic attack.

Sitting at my desk at the office typing a dictation wasn’t any better or worse than any other time. I went from clickety-click-click to holy shit, why can’t I catch my breath? And why does my arm hurt?

I tried deep breathing but OMG I CAN’T BREATHE, MUCH LESS DEEP BREATHE.  I rubbed my arm, took a gulp of water. The old tricks weren’t working. I hadn’t had a doozy like this since 1988 when I actually had to leave a They Might Be Giants concert, in a small venue no less, because I felt like my chest was going to explode.

I called Ginger who works across the lobby.  “Do you have any aspirin?”

Her gaze shifted from her screen to me. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

She didn’t believe me.

After half an hour and much jackassery on my part about medical insurance, we were in her car which was clamoring for gasoline and gliding through one of the sketchier neighborhoods of Cincinnati.  Locals will know it as Over the Rhine or OTR.

Have you ever tried to buy gas in a rough neighborhood? Society and commercial enterprises do not cut those folks a break.

The line was too long and Ginger didn’t want me to escape from the car and run pell mell through the cracked streets back to the office so we drove on.

All the while I was telling her I was fine, take me back to the office, it’s nothing.

“And what happens when you have a heart attack at the wheel, crash your car, kill three people including yourself?” I love an optimist, don’t you?

And there I was with a wristband, the dreaded hospital gown, a bruised arm (the fabulous nurse thought I was joking about my veins), and 3 plus hours to kill with one of the best friends a panicked chick could hope for.

Thankfully it was nothing, but the ER doctor was clear – women should not ignore their symptoms. Heart attacks in women mimic the symptoms of an ordinary (ha!) panic attack. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. Ginger was right to force me to go.

 

If only we’d found the surgical masks.

 

Looking for heaven, found the devil in me

It’s been too long again, but that’s the way life goes these days. I work, I sleep, I engage in capers both gratifying and soul sucking.  There are actually moments when I turn over control to someone else and (gasp!) relax. While I still Instagram the crap out of life, I’ve been reluctant to blog about all that’s gone down, down, down because I was afraid you would….

1.  Think I’ve gone insane. (Not an unfair assessment.)

2. Offer me advice. (Please don’t.)

3. Label me a bad mother. (Get in line behind my kids.)

4. Not believe me.

5. Believe me.

So here I am, toes wiggling at the precipice of another change. The best laid schemes of this here narcissist went out and fell in love with tried to get laid elsewhere and the resulting behavior of yours truly was so unpleasant that now, not only do I get to see what it feels like to be on the other side of the fidelity fence, I also get to move house again. Too precious, I know.

While I’m feeling karmically relieved by my own comeuppance, I’m huffy about moving again so soon. The recently acquired place never quite achieved home status.  Now it contains so much bad juju I’m fixing to flee it like it’s haunted by the ghosts of a thousand bad decisions.

Thanks be that everything I own fits in a Toyota Corolla, I’ve been heard to say quite a bit lately. The other thing I’ve been saying a lot lately?  I’m sorry. I think MathMan would like for me to stop it already. The voicemails, texts and face to face apologies were enough. The sky-writing in French may have been a bit over the top.

So while I pack my things and adjust to another new place and routine, here’s a list of things I intend to bore you with in the coming days? weeks? whatever. Why waste all this perfectly good sturm und drang by not writing about it? At least that’s what I keep telling myself. If I can’t find purpose in this mess, what then?

Anyway…..

1.  My discovery of hiking and what is wrong with you people, why did you never tell me about how much fun it is?

2.  The divorce diet vs. the break up diet

3.  Training for a non-existent 5k

4.  The Truth and other lies we tell ourselves

5. How I’ve blown it as an absentee parent

6. Giving up sugar. Less a lament than a confession.

Until next time,

L.

Them what made me

Spotted in their home away from home.

I am a casino orphan.

Allow me to explain.

One of the reasons I moved back to Indiana was so that I could be near my parents who are, like the rest of us, getting on in years. To make good on my scheme to make their entire lives uncomfortable (just ask them), I am compelled to check in with them at least once a week to say hi and see what’s in the refrigerator.  Here’s what that looks like…

I pull into their driveway in my disaster on 4 wheels and assess the situation.  The closed garage door should be my first clue that they might not be at home, but I’m an optimist.

Press nose against the back door to see if Mom and Dad are sitting in their designated chairs. Seeing no signs of life, ring bell just for good measure. Press nose against the window again. Note that the lamp next to Mom’s chair isn’t on.

Good thing I know where to go next.

Drive the 1.4 minutes to the riverfront casino where my parents are part of a gang of hopeful hangabouts who wait for their names to be called so they can win something. Anything.  For the love of all things good and holy, let them win!

I park in the middle of nowhere because I don’t want anyone to see me getting out of that wreck of a car and make the long schlep toward one of the grimmest places in the tri-state area.

After a visual sweep of the pavilion and sensing no parental vibes, I make my way onto the tethered riverboat through a wide, enclosed gangplank that reeks of what can best be described as Malboro Kotex.  Whoever thought you could mask cigarette funk with the flowery, powdery scent of a deodorant maxi pad is wrong. Dead wrong.

Once on board,  I head straight for the slots.  I know my parents. They like their pain a penny at a time.

I weave through the machines careful not to be distracted by the lights and dings and cha-chinging surrounding me. I glance at each person facing a machine, staring intently as the vision before them changes from an offering of  hope to a sad reality.  Another penny, quarter, dollar, fiver gone.

At that time of day, it’s clear that at 48, I am bringing down the average age on board that boat by a couple of decades. I try to ignore the obvious – my hair color matches that of the oldest patrons inserting their gaming cards with quivering hands and willing the machines to do them a solid.

I forget that I should look first in the non-smoking area so I end up touring the entire facility with a visit into the games room just for good measure. Despite the cigarette smoke I’ve inhaled, I consider this time well-spent healthwise.  Steps taken, calories burned.

This method of parent tracking is hit or miss. Sometimes I find them later in the pavilion, tucked into a corner, strategically situated so they can watch the Reds game on the wall-mounted television, monitor the screen showing the names of the most recent prizewinners, listen to the music provided by some duo with a guitar and keyboard, and, most importantly, keep a sharp eye on the ebb and flow of the casino’s patrons.  While it’s true that the place has the feel of a disco nursing home, it’s great for people watching.

Sometimes I never do find my parents, but am instead rewarded with chance encounters with various people from my past.  My first and sixth grade teacher.  The mother of the first boy I kissed. Another woman to whom I introduced myself, hand extended like a goon, only to discover that I once babysat for her boys while she attended a homemakers’ club meeting with my mom.

Have I mentioned it’s a little odd to come back here after being gone so long?

So this is new for me, the fact that my parents just hang out.  The fact that they hang out together is even more confounding.  As a kid, I thought they did so little together what with both of them working, my dad often on swing shifts at the factory, Mom working, but also volunteering and herding us from place to place. Who knew they might actually find contentment in one another’s company? Contentment being open to interpretation, of course.

Yesterday I found them after clocking a few laps around the casino and took a seat at their little table in the corner. It was then that I discovered a few things:

1.  My dad makes up nicknames for everyone and doesn’t seem to note the least bit of irony about dubbing someone else “Big Belly.”

2.  My mother categorizes me as a cat person.  Imagine that.  When she introduced me to one of her friends, she mentioned that we had “that” in common.

3.  I’m really lucky to have this time to spend with my parents while we’re all adults (mostly).  I know many people who never got that chance with their parents.

4. If the guy in the motorized wheelchair is wearing a Harley t-shirt and has a gleam in his eye, just do yourself a favor and step aside.

So it’s one more round for experience

The change of seasons has me all stirred up. I’m the alarm that won’t stop going off. The lighter that won’t catch and burn. That ache in your shoulder that’s not quite enough to send you running for the pills, but enough to make you moan “fuck” when you move a certain way.

My old therapy aka writing eludes me. Hateful muse.

I miss writing but can’t latch on to a thought long enough or securely enough to mine it for anything meaningful or even funny.  Dig deeper?  Bite me. If I don’t will most of my thoughts to glance off me like baby taps, I’d morph into a glowing ball of fury.

And as fun as that sounds to the casual observer?  No.

My new nickname is already The Door Slammer.

Even so, I’m going to show up here and get my chops back. I cannot keep not writing and expect anything to change, right? Come on. Convince me. Or don’t bother because I am pretty hard headed.  In my hands, stubborn becomes a whole new weapon.

XO

The outlines of our lives

Life and its shifting dynamics are at work here. The writer in me went quiet and the navel-gazer in me let her because sometimes a good hushing up is just what I need to get straight. The inner turmoil that once fueled rapid keystrokes and even more rapid backspacing medicated into a sort of calm, I had an excuse for not looking too closely. At anything.

And then something stirred. Was it because I went down a dosage in my anti-depressants? Was it the reintroduction of Phentermine into the soup of my brain chemistry? Was it that suggestion of something new? How could it carry the mark of familiarity like a threadbare-at-the-elbows sweater, favorite pair of jeans, the worry stone in my pocket? It did. I’d heard that one before.

But that suggestion made something come loose, peeled back a layer. A corner of a layer. Just enough for a glimpse of a memory. It forced me to think, to remember, to take note even if I wasn’t ready to write about it because that would put it down in black and white and the very grayness of it compelled me to delve more, to reveal something to myself.

Until the light was so bright it couldn’t be ignored.

The telling part isn’t coming easy so I turn to novels. Reading them, listening to them, thinking about them. But not writing them. Not even considering writing them. A consumer, not a producer. A taker, not a giver. A seeker of inspiration. Two or three at a time, barely pausing to take out the last CD from one audio book before inserting the first of a new one. Not time to digest an ending, just pushing on in a mad quest for words that help me show (not tell!) what’s going on.

And there is much to tell, but I’ve lost my confidence to tell it. And then that nagging, glass half empty question – who gives a shit anyway? This life isn’t the least bit interesting to anyone who isn’t living it.

Cast your story out into the ocean. A message in a bottle would have just as much impact in the grand scheme of things, you silly woman with the tiny life who uses cliches like grand scheme of things.

And then I found myself feeling a little put out to read about the process of writing those novels, the writerly angst, the push and pull, the very extrusion of words onto paper, the utter fucking sausage making of it all.

I was becoming unmoored, cut loose and drifting from the anchor I’d gotten so used to that it felt like a part of me. The way I’d come to define myself, the community I’d been a part of were slipping away. Self-imposed exile how I love thee. Undefine myself, erase the box, delete, delete, delete.

Now what?

Work. Friends. The impossible commute. Family. The time warp that happens each spring as we race headlong and calendar-packed into the end of the school year. Baseball. Chloe’s graduation. Friday lunches with friends and the laughter. How long had I gone without laughing, truly laughing, with friends?

It may have been a change that did me good. Out of my head and into life. Scary, of course, because it makes one vulnerable, but it’s the bad with the good, right? Every good story needs both.

My observations turned outward because introspection was comfortably tucked away in a drawer somewhere. Tamped down through the miracle of modern medicine, safe distanced and secured.

I thought about the things I could write here.

The heron next to the pond I drive past every day on my way to work. The one day that another heron was there, too, dancing some sort of avian tango, long, narrow beaks pointed in opposite directions, wings outspread, parallel, slow movement to the right, up to the edge of the pond. I slowed down and watched for as long as I could.

Two tiny calves head-butting each other within a loose circle of other calves nursing on their mothers, a fog providing a backdrop, filtering the rising sun. That would have made a real keeper of a photo, but moments like that move too fast. Better to capture it in words. But I didn’t. Not until now.

The lover, thinking that he’s unobserved, burying his face in his lover’s hair, breathing in her scent to hold with him until —-

The way a field of crimson clover looks like Georgia red clay when you view it at an angle. The way the world has suddenly greened up almost like it’s been colorized by Hollywood.

The new stories, other people’s stories, those nuggets of detail and even broad strokes, that you know you’re already filing away for future reference, threads to be woven into the fabric of some story when you’re ready to start writing again.

I think I’m ready.

Some people don’t dance if they don’t know who’s singing

Source

When I used to work from home, was unemployed, lived in my little enclosed world, I was skeptical of the way the workplace was portrayed on television sitcoms.

Maybe I’d been working in tiny offices for too long. I mean, my last paying gig had its moments. Like the time I did a little breaking and entering for my boss. Or the time we had the tutorial on using Urban Dictionary to look up phrases to describe questionable sex acts. Yes, I’m judging.

Now that I’m working in a larger office with a cast of characters (several who will require pseudonyms at some point), I’m less skeptical.

Some of the pseudonyms are easy. For example, there’s The Bossfriend and Monique. I work most closely with them. The Prankster shows up occasionally with his airhorn and duct tape. We have The Kid, Maxine, and Mr. Wholesome. We have the Former Mayor of Portland.

One of the characters, however, needs a name desperately and he seems to defy categorization. Recently, he had each of us sign a sheet of paper

I asked why.

“Can’t I just get a little blind faith. Just this once?”

I signed. I hate to see a grown man cry.

Turns out he wanted to analyze our personalities using our penmanship. According to him, I’m creative, start strong, but have trouble finishing what I’ve started.

I swear, I haven’t talked about my writing or lack thereof at the office at all, so maybe there’s something to this signature analysis business.

Of course, according to him, we also have several staff with anger issues, short attention spans, too much work, too little work, trouble with the drink and one who would, in another life, be your sixth grade teacher. Such beautiful penmanship. A lost art really.

I couldn’t deny how hurried and sloppy my signature is so I spent my lunch hour practicing new techniques like a girl in love doodling her boyfriend’s name on her notebook. Well, that was a waste of a lunch hour. I didn’t even come close to developing a signature signature. It still looks like

Lisa Gol(Ican’tbebotheredtowritetherestoftheletters).

********

People on Twitter and Facebook were oohing and ahhing over Shirley Bassey’s performance during The Oscars on Sunday night. I had no idea who she was until someone tweeted that she was singing Goldfinger and then I remembered that voice. That voice.

So this got my attention this morning. It’s rough and delicious and so very relevant. Micro and macro.

 

Is history repeating itself?

What does your signature say about you?

Caught in a landslide

Not a chicken, but I love his style.

Are these the chickens?

The little signs. The billboards. The shoe on the other foot? One shoe on the floor, the other about to —-

Withholding or absence?

Sandpaper on silk, tongue stuck on a popsicle.
A tango without steps. Without a lead. Fearless or otherwise.

Leaves falling in July. Green grass in December.

Is this the real life or is this just Fantasia?

Where did I put it? Where did you put it?  It’s always something. First one thing than another. There you go. And there you are. There’s that.

The John Deere in the haystack. The needle in your eye.

Nothing is easy.

Quick! Make haste! Vite! Vite!

Remove all flat surfaces. Depressions and resting places. Fill them with knick knacks and bric-a-brac.

Not here. No no no no. Not here. This is not your soft landing.