Twelve is No Picnic - and I'm a Bitch

Rugelah has been stressing me. Where is the conscience? The decency? The courtesy? I have been reduced to writing the rules of the kitchen and posting them on the refrigerator because she is so too-cool for the food we buy with the money we earn to feed her face! Everything leads to a pout. I am reading this book on the brain and if you deliberately articulate three positive things about your day you may actually feel better about your self (no it is not a pop-psych book, it is written by two neuro-scientists). The authors do not advocate making up crap that is unrealistic; it is more of a "dinner tasted good so life must be a wee but okay" typa thing.

So I said to Rugelah last night "what are your three things?" and she's all "I only have two." And I'm like gimme a break, but I told her my three anyway. She was very happy about my third one because I went grocery shopping and I got the English muffins she had requested. Nevuthuless, she refused to make it her third good thing because she wouldn't have the opportunity to eat the actual muff until today. Ach. Of course that sounds like a power struggle, because it was one, but I actually managed to seem blase about it.

She is rude these days. Big Brother says something about taking turns and she is aghast. I expect her to make her own breakfast and she looks forlornly at Ball & Chain, who is in My-Little-Girl-Gets -Everything (may I vomit) recovery, and he covers his face with the paper. She finds the English Muffins, sees that they are not white bread (I rarely buy white bread because I am an evil mother), and pronounces "I told you last time that I don't like flavored." Last time? I bought her English muffins maybe once before, back when she was human. Sticking with my blase ploy, and sipping my coffee, I muttered something about there being honey in them. She managed to toast, spread butter, and eat independently. Then, with a reminder, she cleared her plate, spilling only half the crumbs back onto the table.

Stop the presses! No need for me to describe other issues, as there has been a radical turn of events. Holy wrongful stereotyping by rude mother! Dear One Reader - and the dog - Rugelah came home from school, showed me her year book, and apologized! I retract it all, humbly, and admit that I was never as good a person as my dear little Pastry.

I'll keep trying.

Becca, Clouds and Weddings

Now that I posted about Beanpole, Becca is wondering why I have not posted about her. Well, first of all, I have not blogged about anything in eons and am returning now, just after school's out. And, to be utterly truthful, an old college pal wrote me and complimented my writing and I thought I'm a lazy bum and then I decided to blog.

Regarding Becca: When someone is around for years and years and years you might not blog about her, but she has definitely received mention. She is a great writer and one of her essays - a combo of traditional rigorous research, contemporary culture, and a frank voice - was recently published in a well-known magazine that shall remain unnamed. She has published other work, as well. Does that count for me - my friend's publications?

I met Becca in high school. I was the new girl, and she was the serious girl who knew everybody and put herself down a lot. She encouraged me to speak up in class (something about which I did write in our alumni newsletter, so there), and she accepted me as I was, despite my lack of cool. Obnoxious Guy made fun of the elasticized waist on the back of the blazer I wore the first day, but Becca never did that stuff. Nowadays, Becca still knows everybody - she moved away for years, came back, and is fully installed, as if she never left. More importantly, she looks really good. Reference photo above. See what I mean? (Beanpole! She is straight.)

Becca was not at my wedding. It is hard to say "my wedding" after seeing the Sex and The City movie, because the main character is all ego-freaky about her wedding, but if I say "our wedding," it sounds like Becca and I are married, but we are not. (Incidentally, Sarah Jessica's wedding dress was a horror, especially since her boobs were too small for it. Those breast things are sticking out, and let's not get into the teal blue taxidermy on her head.) Okay, Becca was not there! Not at The Sex and The City wedding, and not at mine. Follow my digressions, please. At that point we were not in touch, and she was a high school pal whom I had not seen in ages. I did not want some of the people who were at my wedding to be there, and I wanted other people who were not there to be there, and it was all please-your-parents-ish. If Becca had been there I am quite sure it would have been better, but she wasn't, and I am still married. And both Becca and I had excellent wedding dresses sans the dead bird.

At Becca's wedding I had two clouds of guilt over my head. First, because she had not been at my wedding. And second, because I was seated with the most lovely couple, both of whom (I'm whoming a lot today) were classmates at the pre-Becca school I attended. Since Becca knows everybody, she eventually found them. She had told me that they were "the nicest people she had ever met," and she had traveled with them in India. Mrs. Nice-People was a former friend from sixth grade. I was new to private school, and she was a sweet, long-legged and friendly kid who sat with me. We were good friends - I remember sleeping on her top bunk - until The Popular Girls started paying attention to me, at which point I promptly dumped the now-Mrs. Nice-People. At least that's how I remembered it. Sitting there, next to them, as a shallow-child-turned-shallow-adult.

So I'm at this wedding with Ball & Chain, who is happily oblivious to my guilt-clouds, and downing kosher appetizers. (There was Jewish-wedding guilt, too, but that's another story.) Mr. Nice-People is thrilled to see me because, well, he's just thrilled to see me. We had only been in that class together for one year, as he arrived as a freshman, and then I left. He kept saying "I can't believe it! Lucy van Pelt!" or something to that effect. Mrs. Nice-People seemed much more believing and definitely less interested. I was sure she was remembering what an awful girl I had been, and I kept wondering how to say something about what an awful girl I had been. I randomly recalled two coincidental meetings with other members of her family over the years, both of which were awkward: Mom (part of Mom and Dad when I had known her) at a lesbian potluck when I was lesbianing in college, sister dating the fiancee I had ditched and then evil-eyeing me at a party at his house. Anyway, when Mr. Nice-People said goodbye to me, we hugged, but then he did not completely let go, and holding on to my waist with both hands, he looked into my eyes and told me how great it was to see me. I could see Mrs. N-P in my peripheral vision. It was was guilt cloud number three, but admittedly a small thrill.

There are other stories I could tell about Becca or Beanpole or Mrs. Nice-People, as women seem to be most of the main people in my life, and we all kind of come and go, like something out of Gertrude Stein. Recently I had a painful exchange with my dear sister. Becca once described to me the essence of her family, the way - no matter what - family stays together. She said she would tolerate anything from her sister because she was her sister. In high school, we would have scoffed at that type of loyalty, or an admission that friendships come and go. "Friends 4-Eva." But I think Becca was on to something. As my family tries to get up after a few awful swats, I am more conscious of the connection. Becca's insights help.

Big Brother and Beanpole

It's time I wrote a little something about Beanpole, my new friend at work. I can call her Beanpole because she calls me the most atrocious of names. I had not heard that particular reference for maybe thirty years, and then only from my expert older brother. He was expert at being a faster, bigger, smarter older brother, and that's what set him apart from the amateurish brothers who sometimes pestered my friends. Laughing at a sister? That was nothing. With Big Brother, one never knew when the bed would be filled with minuscule sharp crumbs, when kids at school would tease about a private mortifying event at home, or when one's name might be turned into a subject of disgust. The satisfied grin on his face made it that much more horrendous. And a tiny bit funny, I'll admit, thirty-five years later.

Back to Beanpole. She also likes to tease, but now that I'm an immature adult, I enjoy a good tease myself. Plus - and this is what bonds us - she is an absolute yente (busybody), and she knows a lot about what goes on. Despite my short tenure there, I also keep my little ears open, so between the two of us we are quite an encyclopedia of knowledge. Since her students become my students, there was an initial awkwardness about whether each of us was up to snuff. But then when she told me that she has no grade book and that she cares more about the kids than the academics, I realized that we are cut from a similar sensitive/lazy (you decide) cloth.

Beanpole is a lesbian. She looks around ten years younger than me but she is not. I have a theory about lesbian vagina - historically unfettered by the trauma of childbirth - that may be a moot point soon, as many lesbians are giving birth. My childbirth experiences did not devastate my vagina, but it did not help matters either. The ridiculous stretch, the perineal disfiguration, the golf ball/hemorrhoid, the subsequent back injury, perhaps the rapidity with which I shot those mucus-heads out, all, in hindsight, or perhaps in cunt-sight, aged my twot. It's a good twot, but it needs to be taken out and walked every day. It needs exercise, and it suffers from cramping when I menstruate.

But wait. I was not referring to Beanpole's vagina looking younger than mine; I actually meant her face and general demeanor. What would age her? No kids, no husband, no childbirth, no saggy belly. Doesn't it make logical sense, though, that if one's female parts are youthful that one's other parts would be in good shape too? And if you are reading this and thinking it's all crap and I would be fine if I just exercised, well, you are right. and I'm quite sure I'll start tomorrow. However, this little piece is about Beanpole, despite the detour into my - figurative - vaginal non-virginal canal. Hey- no fair! Beanpole sounds phallic but she is very much a female. That was some unintentional vaguely disturbing Freudish-type stuff that we shall now pass over.


The bit that is fun is Beanpole's unsquelched enthusiasm. Perhaps it belies her youthful glow, as it were. She asked me to help her move even though I have not known her for very long, and she laughed when I feigned offense. She raves about her dog as if he is a long-lost love, and she is something of an eager puppy herself. The friendly digs she seems to have borrowed from Big Brother make her that much more familiar. A bigger, faster, taller person who gives me grief! How refreshing!

Good Turns and My Inner Television

Big Kid is in the hospital right now and of the hundreds of images blowing through my semi-conscious brain, the one that really popped was all of these anonymous gals writing to me on my blog. I didn't write for a long while and now some of my links aren't linkable anymore, which sucks. Anyway back to Cowbell and Suzanne and all of the other women who've pushed a good word my way, it's quite startling, really. In the face-to-face people naturally don't know what to say, which is understandable, but then other people take the time to give out something to a stranger.

I started writing on here after Baby Brother was killed and somehow people responded and it gave me something to do other than wring my hands. And I did truly wring them, turning and pulling at them as if something worthwhile would squeeze out. Once I started typing, all of this not-profound insight based on seventies television came out, and I realized that maybe I could bumble through the shit. Then lo then behold and people wrote to me, too.

Now here I am again only it's not again it's the same thing because once a man is killed, people suffer for a long time. Big Kid and Baby Brother were close more like brothers or maybe in other families people get that close to an uncle? It still hurts and today I wanted to talk to my brother so badly, to let him know how his nephew is, and to get his opinion. It's rare when someone else loves your kid the way you love your kid, or understands him in the true sense. And then some excellent icing on the case when people you've never met send good vibes through a computer to help a woman they've never met.

I'm watching season 3 of The Wire on DVD and reading Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min. In between I'm hopscotching through my days, trying to manage the serious shit.

Mental Health and not-Freudian Typos

This morning I had quick anxiety attack (thank God that's over) followed by crying over my brother. You know what really sucks? It sucks when you adore someone and you feel utterly comfortable with him and then he gets killed by a half-baked porn star. You think you're better and you really are, but there are not that many people who pad around in pajamas all day concocting "cheesies" with Korean sauces and other fine ingredients like sardines. There is just no one who has as many condiments as he did, or who looks as scruffy. Plus, to be selfish, I do miss being understood and accepted. Plenty of people are very good to me, but to love me is to embrace the unpredictable and get ready for some emotional crap. Ball & Chain is good at reading the paper and I don't mind and when I do he puts it down.

I don't like it when people talk about Baby Brother like he was perfect. That's not it at all. But his appreciation of the so-called 'low brow,' and his array of crap, were quite comforting. like that guy under plastic with the little magnetic hairs that you move with a wand to make a beard or hair or both. I am good at that. (Baby Brother would have loved this political version to the right - Create A Commie - although the little magnetic hairs should probably be gray as homage to Senor Castro.) I was looking for some crap to cheer Rugelah up when she was sick. Big Kid found Pez with a weird cat head. I found stickers that you put on your office stuff - for example, teeth for your stapler - to jazz things up a bit.

But back to naxiety. Ooh I like that typo - I'm leaving it. Naxiety: The condition of being so anxious that one loses the ability to type properly as symptom of weakening ability to think sequentially. I could write my own DSM! Both anxiety and naxiety are a fucking plague on my life. I had been taking an SSRI only to discover that that particular drug is associated with memory loss. Here I thought that I was having word-retrieval issues that coincidentally arose when some half-assed psycho-pharm doctor put me on it - oh no it was my old inappropriate shrink who sent me an email along with his other "friends and colleagues" before I ditched him - without ever mentioning memory issues. Ack!

What's the theme of this piece of writing? For the one and a half people reading - and the dog, of course - it's beware of psychopharmacology, especially if you genuinely need it - and don't ever forget that your anxiety is just your coping mechanism for avoiding what really hurts. Naxiety is a related disorder found in 80% of people with anxiety and predession, a topic for later discussion.

What Would Carol Say?

I received a Dear Jane letter. Not from my husband, not from my lover ( that would also be my husband), not from some crazed spammer. It was from a former friend. We were friends briefly, then the fun and hilarity that sprung up quickly faded almost as quickly. She was cold and distant. I thought 'what the hell'? I had other friends and I got over it or whaddevah and moved on. Years passed. I continued to be friends with my friends - Becca, Chrystal, Doctor, Cutie, among others - and my children grew, etc etc. Suns rose, moons rose, zits came and went.

Then one morning last week, sitting with the coffee Ball & Chain makes me, was a gray envelope, clearly from this woman. We'll call her Egomania S. New-Heights. She actually has a very Austen-esque name, so we could call her Penelope, which sorta cracks me up - but I'll decide later. The letter, over which B& C was drooling a bit, as he is a yente (Jewishe busy-body) inside a WASP body, was addressed in a stylized cursive. How quaint. A letter! I was too bleary to imagine why this person would write me now, but apparently B& C thought it would be a rapproachment of sorts - how Penelope-ish - or something similarly juicy.

She said she had pondered our relationship from all sorts of angles. Out of her ass perhaps? And she felt she owed me an explanation as to why she had "dumped" me. I was genuinely perplexed. Dumped me? Angles? I, the ruminator of all ruminators, worrier extra-ordinaire, had not given a thought to this woman in years. Our friendship was brief, she became unpleasant, I had other fish to fry. She went on to say that she had begun to feel critical, and to her, "that meant death to a friendship." See what I mean about the Jane Austen part? Okay, maybe more Carol Burnett? Remember when Carol came down the stairs, a la Scarlett O'Hara, wearing not only the drapes, but the curtain rod across her shoulders? Her forte was laughing at melodrama, and of course those bulging crazy-eyed expressions.

Penelope went on to wish me well and make reference to my witty personality or something. She broke up with me and we were not going out! I was offended, I started to be angry, and then I realized how funny it is to receive a break-up letter from someone you never think about. In fact as I write this, I cannot help laughing a bit because here is one issue I really did not consider. What to do with the actual letter? Keep it to make petty and vindictive remarks? No fun, really, as I have no pent-up feelings of revenge, as I do not think of her. After an intimate discussion with B&C - about 10 seconds - I took his advice and threw it out. If it were the Carol Burnett Show, I would have had to light it with a match while Harvey Korman emitted an evil laugh. Or at least I could have found the several gifts she had given me and angrily tossed them. I like the stuff, though, so I am keeping it.

How I would eat up a letter from the guy with whom I was engaged and broke it off; the friend who never returned my letter after we argued over politics; any former female lover; the childhood frenemy who led the girl group to shun me with evil little notes about my awful hair and face. Or my long-lost pretend uncle who always adored me from afar (when he dies I will inherit pretend money - a lot of it)? So many people about whom I dream, wonder, and consider after lo these many years. But Penelope aka Egomania? She's not even a post-script in my imaginary autobiography. Perhaps this is at least one person out there who over-thinks even more than me? Or - a more realistic theory - did not watch enough Carol Burnett to know when something is downright silly.

Yikes Anxiety

Didja ever find out that someone at your job was not having her contract renewed and then get in a panic because you remember other awful and difficult places and then you think well maybe I was wrong maybe all these places fire teachers willy nilly who says stuff like that - willy nilly - anyway then you try to call your two pals at your work but they're not answering and what with caller id they will think you're insane?

Ironically I just dreamed about Lou Grant who turned out to be Bitchqueenfromhell and it was the first dream in which she was trying to get me to stay there before she decided to try to get me to leave there without telling me to leave but just tormenting and humiliating me because I was more qualified than she thought I was and somehow being a certified teacher drove her mad. Whoa upon rereading that truly makes no sense.

I threaten people. That's my problem. I overwhelm people with my Mensa-esque intelligence, my stunning Cate Blanchett (not Winslett) look and my probing questions. Ack! When I saw my co-worker's face I recognized that freaky sudden realization that oh I need to go elsewhere. Of course when Lou Grant did that she followed up with offering a position a few days later but still there have been other situations in which my job has gone bad somehow or I have felt unwelcome oh woe is me this is ridiculous. Do you sense the defensive tone? Someone might actually read this and judge me and be like ooh why didn't they like her at that school and now even when I have a good situation I am a nervous goddamn wreck.

That's all folks. Psychopharm appointment tomorrow - no shit.

Post Script: Seinfeld rerun tonight was perhaps the funniest episode I've ever seen: Kramer stopped wearing underwear, Jerry dated a white woman who pretended to be Chinese, George's dad - Jerry Stiller - had a lawyer who wore a cape, and Elaine ruined her friend's life. I could just add: and while watching, Lucy convinced herself that her job was going down the tubes.

Gimme Fred and Ethel.

I am writing instead of watching the SuperBowl - ha! I would rather watch Desperate Housewives and I do not like Desperate Housewives. I would rather watch Mitt Romney and John McCain have a debate and I dislike both of them immensely. I would not rather watch Hilary and Obama because I am a traitor, a fake, a massive hypocrite. I do not like Hilary because she was for the war, she gives me a headache, and worst of all, her goddamn husband would be in the White House controlling shit and that's weird because he was already The President, right?

So I am not the perfect product of women' college. I don't feel guilty. No, no, no, ack, yes, okay I do. Is it not prescribed that I vote for Hilary? I adored Geraldine Ferraro, I swear! She was smart, down-to-earth, righteous. She absolutely did not talk about the "HBT" ("human being time") she had with her husband. That was then, this is now, and I am disappointed. A Republican friend (yes I have one) asked me today what Obama's positions really are. I admit that I don't exactly know, apart from opposing the war, but I really like what he says. I know he's progressive and intelligent and all-the-stuff-I-am, I think?

Perhaps I am a political ignoramus. I did go to the Obama web site a few weeks ago to become more well-versed with his policies. It was so fucking boring I could feel my brain dry up a bit as I read. Do I remember what it said? Hell, no! It was like reading a history textbook, a task I never succeeded at, unless it was one paragraph on a page with a lot of photos and a penciled-in moustache on a dead white guy.

But I digress. I do read the paper and I am familiar with what's going on politically and I cannot embrace the joy of Hilary Clinton's candidacy. Reign in the husband, Lady! Ethel and Fred both had strong personalities, but she didn't let him weigh in on Lucy's dilemmas. I've had mixed feelings about Hilary ever since her husband was elected and she began to work on health care. I was like 'hold the phone,' who elected her? Now it just keeps going like that, with blurred boundaries between the two of them. I had a crazy-ass principal years ago - I've had a few - whose unemployed husband joined a meeting she had with a group of teachers. None of the teachers knew what to say when the guy offered his advice, but they were too polite to question his presence. I have not been accused of being too polite - ever - and unless we start electing co-presidents, this is wrong.

On the proverbial second thought, perhaps it's not so different from Bush/Cheney. Hill/Bill. They could run for president and vice president together. I'd like to see the husband as the VP in the old VP style: no real power and we never hear from him. I'd particularly like a genuine First Gentleman, in the tradition of the many First Ladies before him. Now there's a concept I could embrace: the 'pussy-whipped' former president in an outfit by a famous designer giving interviews to Ladies Home Journal. He could start a controversial campaign against drugs or in favor of children reading. The style pages would publish articles on his hair color and choice of ties.

The Clintons are both extra-intelligent, but there's something sneaky that makes me queasy and uneasy. I'd rather think about football. And I don't like football.

Neuroses, Ho!

I am walking around one big goddamn regret after another. I just spent all of this time looking back at old posts because a new friend, Sway, is going to look at my blog and maybe she'll discover what an ass I am. I started a new job and people seem to think I am intelligent over there. Well now my cover's blown! Plus: maybe I should have exercised a bit over the past twenty years. Or even this morning, I could have read the paper more carefully so I would be more politically attuned. I truly obsess over all of the millions of things I could have done or said. Another friend said 'shoulda coulda woulda,' as if I should just forget it all. But my regrets are like a map of my neuroses and without my neuroses, well, would I be the same gal?

There is no way I could be as pseudo-anxious as Ally McBeal, who I loved to hate, except when I was hating the other people on the show. Remember when Peter McNichol was on that Family show in the seventies with his actual sister Kristie who turned out to be a cute lesbian with frosted hair but no tv career? Then there's the mom on Malcolm in the Middle - love her! She's like the best Queen Bitch you ever dreamed you'd be. But I'm more like Leah Remini, the wife on King of Queens, with the UPS guy and Jerry Stiller. She worries about the stupidest crap and what people said and why they said it and whether her ass has gone bad. That's me right there. Except in real life she's a Scientologist and in real life I am prejudiced against Scientology because it seems like Tom Cruise is a freak. Not a good freak - a bad icky freak. Plus, regarding Leah, I would never marry Kevin James. He's too I'm-a-big-hunka-stupidity. I wouldn't mind being related to Jerry Stiller. Maybe I am related to Jerry Stiller. Or maybe I just look like Leah Remini?

Religious Cynicysm, Money & Other Musings

They're expanding the temple where my daughter goes to Hebrew School and we can't afford the dues or the requested building costs, there are some stylin' new clothing items that so suit me right now, and I love my job where I don't make enough money but did receive a bonus for the first time in my life.

The temple thing is crappy because my brother's memorial service was there and every time I go in I feel, well, grief-stricken, and also they are way into doing mitzvahs and I'm like you're a buncha excessively rich people who deign to donate cans, and now they're publishing the names of people who donate cash to the place in their newsletter. And I'm like donate! I am one of the people who gets a major break on dues, for crissake, or god's sake, or somebody's sake. Why do I belong to a religious institution anyway? Rugelah wants to take the classes and have a Bat Mitzvah, and that, actually, is very worthwhile. If only it could be done in another context, but I guess this as progressive as we can be, without having a Buddha Mitzvah in a grassy field.

My fashion frustration is that this whole long-shirt smock-type idea is excellent for me and I bought one in New York (with the money I didn't give the temple, poor Jew that I am) and it looks great. Compliments my still-perky yet small breasts, and covers the tummy bulge aptly. So I went to this excellent fashion site, Bluefly, and all of Sweet Pea's stuff, who I recognized from Project Runway, which we watched at my rich cousin's house because we don't have cable, is so very even-a-middle-aged lady could wear this. Plus Envi/En V had this cool red-and-gray mod circles and snap at the top dress. okay, I admit it's a bit short for me, but I love it anyway. It is just so lovely to have clothing one likes and kinda shitty not to be able to go out and buy it all. How spoiled-brattish of me, but waah!

My life is quite better lately because I am not so heavily grieving for Baby Brother as I was for so long. The trial was the proverbial travesty of justice, but Baby Brother always referred to the corrupt legal system, so it was validation that his anti-establishment stance was right on.

And now I'm off for dresslust.