Six Sentence Sunday

Ok so I'm an idiot.  I am just getting the hang of Six Sentence Sunday...three weeks later.  So...without any further bullshit here is my SSS entry.  This is an excerpt from the memoir I am working on:

Nothing I did was correct in his eyes.  From sitting up straight to the amount of food I ate to the way I held my fork.  One particularly cruel evening, when I was going for seconds of something or other he barked, “You don’t need any more.  Look at you.  You wanna end up looking like your mother?”  A question to which I would have boomed a cheerful yes if I had not been so terrified.  However his powerful word grenade deployed more devastation to my mother than me.  The hurt in her eyes launched an enormous lump into my throat rendering the second helping I so eagerly craved previously unpalatable. Well played Sir.

Bye-Bye Mini Hostess Fruit Pies...

     So by now everyone knows that Hostess is shutting down production and closing it’s doors for good.  It came as a complete shock to me.  Their cakes are known for their eternal shelf life.  Why would I think the company itself had an expiration date?  As a matter of fact when I heard the news I took it as a sign of the Apocalypse.  I mean the date is only a month away.  The demise of Hostess could be the end of everything.  I mean all things considered it’s difficult to fathom that there will never be another Twinkie made…ever!

As a child my mother did not buy us Hostess products.  She baked.  So anything we wanted in the way of sweets would come from our oven and not the store.  But when I was a teenager and began to buy things for myself I did enjoy an occasional Fruit Pie and RingDings.  And when I became a professional teenage babysitter…well the gloves were off when it came to snacking in other peoples’ houses.  There was one family I would sit for that had three sons.  And their cupboards were filled with every Hostess treat, chip and canned cheese you could fathom.  I would leave there in a snack induced haze…stumbling home singing songs of lost love and good times.  But now as an adult I dutifully wear my mother’s shoes.  My child eats the treats I bake.  And for her the word Hostess will mean nothing other than a woman hosting a party.

But until all the cakes, pies and Donettes are gone.  I urge you to sing this little song I wrote to say farewell to Hostess brand products.  Please sing to the tune of Bye Bye Miss American Pie…by Don McLean

A long, long time ago

I can still remember how your Ding Dongs made me smile.

And if I knew you’d leave so soon I would have savored your Suzy Q’s

and…

Maybe I’d be happy for a while

But November’s news made my soul quake and long for one more Cream Filled Cupcake

Bad news on the TV - Your haunting sweets won’t leave me

I cannot tell you that I cried when I heard that your business fried

But something touched me deep inside the day the Twinkies died

So bye-bye mini Hostess Fruit Pies

Kiss your apple and your cherry and your lemon goodbye

No more Ho Hos, SnowBalls, Ring Dings or pies

No more Sweet Rolls going straight to my thighs

No more Sweet Rolls going straight to my thighs

And we’ll be singing…

Bye-bye mini Hostess Fruit Pies

Kiss your apple and your cherry and your lemon goodbye

No more Ho Hos, SnowBalls, Ring Dings or pies

No more Sweet Rolls going straight to my thighs

No more Sweet Rolls going straight to my thighs…

Repeat chorus drunkenly until you wake up with your face covered in cream filling.

Another dawn will come.

My sentiments dissipate when darkness is expelled by light.  The sun radiates and casts my fears and worries out with the night.  They’re swept away in a breeze and rustle on the pavement with the leaves.  Never actually leaving but whirring around like mini cyclones just outside my door.  

I choke down a dry piece of motivation as I sip my freshly brewed ambition…sweetened and creamed for an easy transition from the cup to my soul.  I gaze out the window and watch as my complications whir themselves into a haze of dew veiled light.  The transition is complete to morning from night.  It’s now safe to exit.

The day is full and bursting with purpose.  My tiny cohort rides along on all my missions.  Strapped in her chair she shares my life in this seated position.  She bargains and negotiates as well as I and never hesitates to vocalize whenever she is is not pleased.  She’s my partner in crime.

We arrive back home before the sun wanes and dine on the glory of the day.  We wash it down with the nectar of success.  Then play games and wind down the last minutes of daylight together.  Undress and ready for bed.  I lay my tiny partner down to rest her head.  She dreams of fun filled times and nursery rhymes…I hope.

I retire to my room and watch as night sweeps light from the day.  Then darkness pushes my door open to return what’s rightfully mine.  It lays my mass of weighty mess on my back…right at the base of my neck.  Pushing down my shoulders and wrecks my disposition.  The pain draws tears and sometimes cynical laughter.  But I know another dawn will come.

That was sarcasm you dead fucks...

Let me preface this entry by saying that this is a rant to my recently deceased friends.  And if you know either of them and are sensitive you may not want to read this yet as it is not a love letter.  Everyone else…read on.

It seems to me that in your death I am the victim.  You are relieved of your earthly chains…your knotting pains and worries.  But I sit friendless and grieved.  Gutted and left empty by your absence.  Left here to stare at ghostly pictures and read archived messages and emails that we shared.  I don’t want to do this…it is just my fate.

Two friends that died by their own vices. Two friends gone that I shared my heart and soul with.  I shared my life and homes with.  I gave my love and self to.  Two friends gone that I called friend that I’ve hugged, comforted and been comforted by.  Two friends that changed my life because without them I would not be here.  Their absence from my space-time continuum would tear a hole in my existence.  

And because you’ve been relieved of your worldly woes…you no longer suffer.  You are no longer tortured by your demons.  Because you no longer feel strangled by life…I ask you.  Was it worth it?  Does your heart still break? It should.  Do you see ours breaking?  Did you float up from your jaundiced poisoned body and think ‘glad that’s over…I’m out…good luck kids…tell my mom I love her’ and float away in bliss? And did you sit next to your body as went into cardiac arrest while lying in vomit and think…’phew…finally out of there.’  Did you happen to catch glimpses of your family and friends on the way out?  Did you hear their tortured wails and heart broken sobs for you?

You don’t know how sick I am of hearing people tell me how peaceful and pain free my dead friends are.  I don’t give a fuck.  I wish their souls were as wracked with grief as mine.  I wish they cried when they passed for leaving all the love here behind.  I wish they suddenly realized how short sighted and selfish they have been.  

Did you not know I have demons?  Did you not know that I was in pain too?  This year has been a total fuck all! I cry all the time.  I tell family that I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown to which they reply…’no you’re not.’  On my best day I feel as though my mind is leaking out of my ears.  I want to dope and drink myself to oblivion but I can’t…I just can’t.  And every day I go a little bit crazier.  And every night I sob over something into my pillow.  And every morning I shower and slap some make-up over my puffy face and slide on my worn out Airwalks and face the goddamn shit ridden world.

God forbid we could have done this together…as a team…facing challenges and life and leaning on each other.

But no…I’m glad you’re free.  I’m glad you’re happy.  You go and dance with angels or whatever the fuck it is you get to do now.  Have at it boys.  I’m thrilled you’re enjoying yourselves.  In case you don’t recognize it in the afterlife that was sarcasm you dead fucks! 

The last word...

Remember that ten to fifteen seconds I mentioned in a previous post?  You know that fleeting moment after you strap your kid in the car and close the door until you get to the driver door and open it up again.  My alone time.  Well my daughter being the sadist that she is has figured out that her ranting during my fifteen seconds of ‘me time’ is going unnoticed.  So the other night while after stuffing her little kicking and screaming body into her carseat I said to her, “you need to stop whining.”  She yelled her response as I was closing the door, “I’M NOT!” The door slammed and I walked to my side of the car and opened the door to her completed sentence, “WHINING!”

I commended her genius to spoil my moment by waiting for me to open the door.  She did not appreciate the compliment but I’m sure she will remember that it bothered me and do it again in the future.  I closed the door encasing myself in the small black sudan of torture with my tiny evil genius and raced home to cuddle and watch Finding Nemo.  Because that’s what Mommies do.  We get over it. Even though sometimes we don’t get the last word.