I Love President Obama

I just do.

The Poster Was Somewhat Misleading

I flipped out last night after a singles thing at my church. It was a cross between Night of the Living Dead and the Island of Misfit Toys. There were a few nice-looking guys my age on the ski trip, so I figured I'd try singles to see if anybody showed up. I got there and saw a pretty normal-looking guy sitting at a table, so I filled out a name card and smiled, went over to sit.

First thing, some guy I used to work with showed up, a chubby guy with sweatpants and a buzz cut. He had a friend with him, a woman who later shared about her ex-husband cheating on her with her best friend. They both sat at my table.

After that, a 300 pound schizophrenic chose the seat right beside me. "I just got back from catching butterflies and moths in Venezuela!" he says.

Big wide eyes, pressured speech, grunting noises. The whole schizophrenic drill.

I said, "Oh, how nice...." and scooched my chair away a few feet.

He grabs the papers in front of me and starts shuffling them, mumbling something I couldn't make out. The schizophrenic shuffle. Scared the crap out of me.

Minutes later, a bald woman with very shiny lip gloss joins us. She wasn't entirely bald. Just partially, like in blotches. Finally, here comes a 400-pound man with a big stain on his shirt and a rope holding up his pants. He was bald, too. The top of his head was shiny and pointy, like an oily hard boiled egg.

I started to feel queasy. I glanced over at the normal-looking guy and opened my eyes as wide as I could. Help me, I tried to tell him. He looked back at me and smiled. Suddenly, he was beginning to look like a pedophile. I could just sense it.

The talk was on the topic of friendship. What is a friend? How do you make make friends? They even showed a clip from the TV show Friends. That was the only good part of the night.

So after about 45 minutes - do you believe I lasted that long? - I made a run for it. I just stood up and said, "I have to go."

I was really queasy and panicky, so I ran to my car and called my best friend Sheree. Left a message that began and ended with "Oh my God." If I'd had your number, I would have called you, too. I was just sobbing.

Anyway, went home and called Jack to tell him I loved him. He is traveling and it was the middle of the night for him. He loves me, too, and that helped a little to hear it. Then I had two Bailey's Irish Creme with decaffeinated coffee.

Today I have a headache, but it is starting to go away. Marc says watch the drinking. I know he is right.

Let's Be Adults

I read over my blog post and realized how much of my dreams are about regret. Sadness. Missed opportunities. There is still some hope there, with much frustration and the realization that some stuff has just passed me by. In some ways, I know I am trapped and in other ways, I can still do something.

These past few days, I have a preoccupation with sex and connecting with someone sexually. There are a number of people I could call, but I don't like most of them. Or trust them, either. I need trust. I need to be tossed around, lifted, rolled on. Funny, when I was in Colorado, I fell on the slopes a number of times. One time, this ski instructor just came up behind me and lifted me from underneath my arms. Set me right on the ground, just like that. I had a physical response to it, a wave of erotic and affectionate feelings. I just wanted to unzip his ski jacket and make love to him, right there in the snow. I think he must have realized it, too, because he blushed.

Sex is about that for me.

I ask myself "how complicated can it be?" But I suspect it must be. The last time I asked that, I ended up married to Mr. Meanie. Affection, trust, children, family... how complicated can it be? Fifteen years later, I still sift through it all.

I am contemplating Adult Friend Finder. How complicated can it be?

For years, I have had a recurring dream about France. The circumstances vary, but the underlying emotion is the same. I am trying to get to France, or to leave France in a hurry. I cannot find my things. Or I miss the plane, forgot my passport or my ticket. I get in the country and cannot get out. Or I cannot bring back my books.

I also have a recurring dream about a house with several rooms. I purchase it, and it needs lots of work. There are many more rooms than I realized. It is a good surprise. Years ago, in the dreams, I wandered from room to room, finding valuable things in them – boxes of jewelry, lovely furniture, paintings, old books, extravagant cloth. Nowadays, the rooms are majestic, but they are bare. Like ballrooms. There are kitchens and attics and piazzas. Each time in each dream the house is beautiful, but needs work. They are reminiscent of the Victorian homes in New England. Large kitchens, tall windows, hidden corners of comfort. You could live there, but you’d have to go back to a different time.

Another one I have all the time: I keep forgetting to take the final exam in college math class. I don't attend the class in my dream. I forget to show up all semester, forget to drop the class, don't take the exam. The professor agrees to give me an incomplete until I can take the final. Then I forget. Years go by. By the time I get back to UMass, he has retired, his office has moved, or he is gone on sabbatical.

This past dream, I went back with my kids. My professor, Dr. Ross, had retired. A nice portrait of him hung on the wall in the academic center. Very few people in the department even remembered him. The math department now conducts aerospace engineering research. So, my chances of getting that incomplete fixed are quite low. My undergraduate transcript is incomplete. My degree is rendered invalid.

Last night, I dreamed it was the last day of high school and all the kids were lining up to clean out their lockers. There was a big crowd, and everyone was in line in the academic building or waiting in the parking lot in their cars. I went to get my stuff from French class, but I had to sort through all kinds of piles of clothes and books and athletic equipment. Then I found the contents of my locker - just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and I wondered why I went to all that trouble to get them. I turned around and realized I was blocked in by all the cars. I shouldn't have bothered to go to all the trouble for the stupid t-shirt and shorts.

While I was waiting in line to leave the parking lot, I took a minute to look at my report card. It was all wrong. My grades were far too low. I kept turning it over and over, trying to remember what went wrong. Then I realized that I had someone else's classes and grades on MY report card. I hadn't taken any of these classes and if I had, I would have done much better.

Now I had to get out of there and go to the office to straighten out the misunderstanding. I figured that if I had someone else's classes and grades, that other person might have mine.

Funny thing, I never took college math. Dr. Ross is not a real person, as far as I know. I never forgot to take a final and I have never misplaced my passport or missed the plane to France. I do have kids are, though. Even in my dream, they run wild in the aerospace engineering lab, jumping on the telescopes and knocking over valuable equipment. Some things never change, even in the realm of the subconscious.

Dreams. So exhausting.

Trash This!

I have this weird popping in my ears, like I have water in there or a wind tunnel. It is very annoying. This whole bit about the economy and how bad it is going to get is nerve wracking. I read yesterday how the giants keep falling, the sky is falling, we're all gonna die, oh no, oh no. I had to lie down.

Emily and Missy decided to open a veterinary clinic while I was resting. I agreed to be a horse with a broken hoof. Quote from Emily:

"The most important thing a doctor can do is not lick the needle after giving the horsie a shot."

So true, so true.

The other night, Missy, who is 5, asked me where the trash goes when they take it away. I thought that was a rather profound question, especially for such a young mind. I told her they take the trash to a big huge pile and toss it there. She asked, "Then what do they do with it?"

I was tempted to lecture her about the floating garbage barges, the Third World, and the impoverished people who actually live in dumps and subsist on what the developed world discards. But she's 5. So I told her they burn it.

"Why do they do that?" she wanted to know.

"I think so it will disappear."

I was trying to get her to say "disappear". She pronounces it like "s'appear" and I think it's cute. But no soap.

"Oh," she said. I guess that satisfied her.

I've been doing this thing called freecycling. It's like recycling, but better. If you have junk lying around that is still good but you can't use, you can post it on the freecycle email list. First one to respond gets it. If you win the race, you pick it up, you move it, and you have to take the whole she-bang. No picking and choosing which bits you want. You take it all and freecycle what you don't want.

Kind of like an electronic Christmas swap. Only with even crappier gifts. I think the Native Americans did that. I know for sure that the !Kung! of South Africa did. That must be where the freecyclers learned it.

This is a typical FREECYCLE treasure list:

• 6 plastic tubular hangers


• large fabric shaver (for taking "pills" off clothes)


• small pink/purple umbrella with "sleeve"


• ½ of a 33 oz bottle Redken 30 volume cream developer (for highlighting)


• vacuum cleaner attachment called "pet hair fantastic" for removing pet hair from carpet


• set of candles that spell Happy Birthday – used once, most letters are complete
  
• A dozen books of matches


• Cross stitched wall decor -1 pink & marroon - says "Loving Hearts Make A Happy Home"; 1 country blue says "It's love that makes a house a home"


• screw in wall door stops - 6 in all, 3 w/o the white cap


• Solid blue mouse pad- good condition.


• 5 misc brand and sizes "PlugIns"/ air fresheners. Just the units that plug into socket, no refills.


• light weight laundry bags like you get in a hotel


• Mary Kay: Partial bottle of Formula 1 Cleansing Cream


• badge clips (small metal clip with plastic snap attached to use with ID badges)


• 2 vcr fitness videos

I tried for the Mary Kay Cleasing cream, but no luck. Need to monitor the list more closely. Get on it, girl.

Photos from Gaza

Preoccupation

I've had a preoccupation with Gaza these past few weeks. Last week, I spent the better part of the morning looking at pictures of dead children. The guy in the next cubicle kept walking past my desk.

"Stop it," he finally said. "Stop looking at that."

I couldn't make myself stop. Just like I can't make myself stop looking at images of African children who are withering away from hunger and indifference. I am a mother, and not just because I have given birth.

I am having the same reaction this week, but it has been underscored and intented (I made that word up) by the knowledge that others are having it, too. The humanity, the helplessness of everyone in this video is heart-wrenching. At the same time, it gives me hope.

We have to know our capacity for evil, for inhumanity, for indifference. And then each of us has to say, "no more."

How many of us can there be? How many of us will it take?