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?

No Ice

I didn't like my date on Saturday with the little old man. He wanted to know if we could SHARE a diet Coke at the movies. That's a bit over the top, even for me.

Cheap bothers me.

He mentioned very casually that he had lost a million dollars last year in real estate. He owned seven homes and had several sub-prime mortgages. Whatever his situation may be, I think the soda question was in poor taste. Seriously, he suggested two straws. I offered to skip it, but then he ordered a medium for himself. Just to spite him, I got a large.

He mentioned that he had a pre-nup with the second wife. And it's a good thing, too, because he might have ended up having to foot the bill for her soda habit.

Marriage is a cut-throat business. I am OK if I never get married again.

I had a date for coffee with the cowboy and he called me at 2:20 to cancel our 2:30 date. He didn't feel well, the big sissy. I am a single mother, by the way, and I already had a sitter and was waiting in Starbucks for some jerk with a Stetson to show up. When I am in charge of the world, all cowboys will die. Bunch of sissies.

Boy, am I in a bad mood.

I am eating hummus and pretzels for breakfast. Making a list of people I hate.

Having a hard day. I wish my ex would get run over by a car.

Little Man Presley

His hands speak to decades of hard labor. His fingers appear swollen with overworked muscles. The skin seems about a quarter-inch thick. If his hands could speak, he says, "They'd be crying, instead of talking, for what they've been through."

"You see how rusty and rough they are. They've been through something, ain't they?"

The article is not well written. Nonetheless, James Presley is a diamond, a national treasure. Don't miss the inaugural. Share his joy.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/12/grandson.of.slaves/index.html

Naked Cowboy. Well, sort of.

I got a couple of emails from someone I used to go to high school with. He was a year older, in the class ahead of me. I remember his name, but not so much him. He got my email on that classmates.com web site.

A few years ago I had used classmates.com to find an old friend. Jennifer was a wild girl in high school who had sex with every guy I ever went out with. Even if I just liked him, she'd nail him. Just to show me who was boss. It was a compulsion with her. And if she couldn't nail him, she'd get someone else to do it. It really used to piss me off until about 8 years ago, when I decided that this was excellent fodder for a series of short stories. The Jennifer Stories.

Writers are sneaky. When we can't get revenge, we write a story. When we can't get revenge on a guy, we write a story and make him a character in it.

With a tiny little penis.

Anyway, this guy from high school is emailing me. I think he likes me, or he used to. I am not sure. Sort of like a boyfriend that I can't remember. From a different dimension. The high school dimension.

I also recently met a cowboy. A real cowboy. Lasso and spurs and the whole bit. I'm not counting on anything working out, though. There's probably this whole "love 'em and leave 'em" rodeo sub-culture that I know nothing about... next thing you know, I'll be crying like a lone doggie on the prairie.

Texans. Little old men. Classmates. Cowboys.

Strange but true.

George Bush and the Beatles

I had a date the other night with a guy from Texas. His name was Bobby. Bobby from Texas. Can you picture it?

I was a little disappointed – he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I felt no attraction and even less interest. I think it was the baseball cap and the fleece-lined jean jacket. And the thick Texas accent. I felt guilty because he wanted to see me again, but I've tried that feeling-sorry-for-my-date approach. It never works out well. I end up getting married and regretting it for the next 15 years. So I wrote him a note this morning to say thank you, but that I didn't think we were compatible. It's mean to say, but he struck me as not very smart. And from Texas. Not a good combination (see GWB, 43rd president, US of A).

I think people are lonely at this time of year. Everyone seems to want to hook up. When I was out with B from T, another guy came over to me to chat. He handed me his card, asked for my phone number, wanted to know if we could get together. Right in front of my date. And Bobby didn't even seem to catch on. I think it's called bird-dogging; when you steal another guy's date. Although, I'm not sure what that expression would make me – a bird or a dog.

Anyway, I looked at the guy's card later and it turns out that he is a divorce lawyer. Not a good sign, I think. He looked a bit like Paul McCartney's grandfather in A Hard Day's Night. Recently divorced, for the second time. Not that I'm judging.

The best part of the evening was that my date was 54, and the bird-dogger was 63. Clearly, I am a hit with the older crowd.