Baby, it's cold outside.

The chill that tonight’s rain has dragged in startles me.  The sultry summer has seared away my hearty New England upbringing rendering me completely unprepared for the impending snowy onslaught ahead.  I lay here repositioning myself frequently, trying to type while wrapped in a blanket and periodically warming my frigid fingers with my hot breath.  This technique is normally put to use when your outside during the wretchedly cold months of January and February not when nestled snuggly in one’s bed.

Secretly I’ve longed for winter.  Romanticizing the season with fantasies of candlelit evenings in front of the fire sipping hot chocolate, and hours of snow-bound adventures and play has been a hobby of mine since mid-August.  My heart rushed at full-speed having woken to the sounds of geese making their annual departure two mornings ago.  My window was cracked slightly and their fairwell honkings roused me to elation at the thought of cold air following them.  I must have forgotten how this air feels…raw…nakedly raw and damp.

Perhaps this chill itself is taxiing a cynical passenger.  And the next cold snap will gingerly usher in a more optomistic air…one that arrives with warm cider and spiced cake just in time for turkey.  Or maybe winter will crawl in burdened with a nasty wayfarer that touts heavy wet snow, the flu and icy walkways and surfaces that beg me to slip and crash to the ground spilling my pumpkin spiced coffee all over my new hooded, cashmere sweater.

As much as I like to wistfully dream it will be the former it will probably be the latter.  Or maybe I am just overreacting to the staggeringly sudden change in seasons.  Nevertheless, the air out there cautions me with a song…

There is Magic in Everything

The greatest thing about the internet, besides pictures of people having sex and pictures of food that people made, is that there are literally millions of stories out there to read.  They range of course from not noteworthy to beyond comprehension but the exploration is a thrill.  And besides writing and running around putting out fires that my daughter has set, and not little waste paper basket fires I mean devastating send in the jumpers and low-flying dousing planes fires, reading is my favorite pastime.  So I've decided to share with you some random blogs and writers that I follow for laughs, tears or in today’s case…fright.

When you’re ready to settle down at the end of a crisp autumn day sometimes there is nothing like a good scary tale to kiss you goodnight.   Having been a fan of Edgar Allen Poe and Alfred Hitchcock practically my entire life it would stand to reason that I found Randall Peterson’s blog; There is Magic In Everything to be a disturbing little treat.  Mr. Peterson writes a new tale of horror every Sunday, a noble mission that I have no idea how he pulls off.  But his site is full of fast reading little gems that are just the right amount of horror one craves before bedtime.

Some stories are serials and have two or three parts but if you scroll and poke around you’ll find the different segments.  His most recent post, It’s Coming This Way Part 2, is the first story you’ll encounter on the page.  Just scroll down a bit and you’ll find the beginning of the story that had been posted a week prior. The only downside to this site is the column on the right has teasers and illustrations of previously posted stories however they link to nothing.  It took me a bit of time to locate the list of Top Ten Most Popular Stories that linked to the actual posts.  It’s located in the right column a little more than half way down the page.  I did all the grunt work of clicking on things that lead to no where so you don’t have to.

Anyway, It’s fun and frightful and silly.  I will be tuning in on Sundays to read what’s next.  Check it out.  Might I suggest Frostman 419 and The Factory? Just make sure the doors are locked and you’ve checked the closets and under the bed before you turn out the lights.

Good night.

Rejoice and ring the bells!

There will come a day when the gloominess of motherhood falls upon me and not even the light of her smile will penetrate the darkness.  But it is not this day.  There will come a day when the weight of the world burdens me to the point of crippling, but it is not this day.  There will be day when the word ‘Mom’ will strike my years with the sharpness of a thousand tiny shards of glass.  But it is not this day.  For today is the day that my daughter used the potty…all day.  Today is the day she is no longer a baby.  She is a child!

Ok…so I’m being melodramatic.  But that tiny girl has fought me and her little pink and white musical toilet for the better half of this year.  She hated sitting on it.  Getting her to do it was torture.  She would cry and fall on the floor.  She would close it and push it away.  Once I sat her on it and she was being so good I left the room.  Came back to find her standing on it brushing her teeth.  This has been a grueling and bloody battle from which we both emerge scarred. But I will tell you this.  Victory is mine.

I finally took the advice of a friend and just stopped putting a diaper on her.  This has been something I was reluctant to do because, who wants to sign up for cleaning up pee all day?  We woke up on Monday and I introduced her to underwear right before her Cheerios.  She was excited.  So I kept reminding her that she needs to tell me when she has to go.  Well, it was not a perfect day by any means but she did tell me.  She would tell me after she already started going in her pants but we would make it to the potty to get the majority of her evacuation inside.  We went through five pairs of underwear that day.  We had one accident on the kitchen floor and two on my bedroom rug.  I am now a professional at removing pee from any surface.

She was rewarded throughout the day with candy treats.  I’ve had a bag of dollar store toys and candy for quite a while.  She raided it for a couple of the toys while I was out one day.  She’s sneaky like that.  I let her keep them being the softy I am.  She spent Monday racing to the bathroom and eating candy bracelets.  In addition I painted her nails and spent some extra play time with her.  

Day two was even more satisfying.  She woke up and immediately asked for the potty.  She went and got to have cookies with her Cheerios.  I’m not proud…just desperate.  She was on the ball all day…not one falter.  No cleaning urine from the floor or scrubbing it out of a rug.  Only went through two pairs of underwear today.  It was glorious.  I’m beaming.  Do you know how many times she’s been told she can sleep over a relatives house as soon as she’s potty trained?  I will be knocking on doors with bags packed pretty soon.  Don’t doubt me.

No more fucking diapers.  No more wipes.  They have created a hole in my wallet since day one.  They are expensive.  And forget about trying to use the cheap ones. You just end up going through more of them.  This is a great day people.  Rejoice with me and be happy.  For I am now diaper free and all the world is mine.

Love, lust and tea.

Let’ be a rock.  Hard and firm.  Old and new at once…a living fossil.  No, let’s be Gibraltar.  Waves crashing against our form.  We stand together unworn…unmoved.  Skin glistening in the sun.  We are undone.  That’s not enough.  We can be a mountain.  Towering over a river carved vale.  Feeling the clouds exhale. Rising up together we peak and touch the sky.  The only way to reach us is to fly.  Ragged and beautiful we will be seen from space.  The stars will kiss us goodnight.  

Let’s be a breeze.  We will rustle leaves and bring relief from sultry heat.  Or better yet we can be wind.  Moving minuscule particles around the world as we breathe.  Neither you nor I will cease our exhalation.   No, wait! Let’s be a gale.  We will bend trees and even break.  We will make all things quake.  Move monuments with one united breath.  Our howling will wake the multitude.  Everyone will be warned of our coming and devastated after our waning.

Let’s be a river.  Carving through rock with falls and lagoons.  Rushing and meandering as one.  Or we could be a lake.  A crystal pool.  Clear and cool nestled in a pristine valley…teaming with life.  We are rife with existence.  An ocean, better yet.  Vessels moving at our will.  Restraining our force like tantric lovers so that we do not destroy all things.  Shattering surf and fleeting tides.  Ebbing and flowing as one.

Let’s be a flame.  We can flicker naked without shame.  Give light to those in need.  And guide them home.  A blaze…a blaze would excite all.  We will give off such heat from our fall.  Dancing in the evening everyone will stare in wonder.  Our scent is divine.  We intoxicate.  We inebriate.  But a fierce volcano is what we are.  Animals will feel our fever from afar.  With magma for blood we are violent and unrestrained. Seething and searing we erupt with torridity.  Cascading over everything…we will burn.

Or you can go on not knowing that I exist.  And I will type dreams of our trysts at 4am.  Drinking tea and trying not to love you.

Feelings are stupid.

I hate that I need to feel loved.  It is so child like.  I thrive on evoking emotions.  Yet I choke on the notion.  I stoke them then choke them.  It’s a game I play.

There’s no end in sight.  I will play all night.  And in the morning pretend that nothing happened.  Tear stained pages in a book laugh at me when I look upon them a second time…then a third.  Just to make sure I am as absurd as I think.  And I am.

I am a joke that no one gets.  I’m a limerick that’s spoken and forgotten.  You know…like that one that goes…you know the one I’m talking about.  I can’t recall it now.  But it will come to me…eventually.  

In the middle of the night when all’s asleep and thoughts and dreams are deep I will fly.  I will soar for a minute and then steadily sink back down to earth.  Even though I try to stay in the air.  

And even though the dream is not over I am grounded.  It was a tease.  That’s me.  A glimpse of something great that will never actually make it.  But I continue to fake it and flap like mad.  Even after I wake.   

How ridiculous I must look…flapping the air.  But I don’t care if people stare.  I am their laugh for the day…or their evening cry.  That’s what I do.  

I stand here flapping.  And others are laughing and crying.  Whatever my flapping stirs.  But I do neither.  I’m tired.

My arms ache.  My heart is bruised.  I’m not amused.  I’m nothing.

Feelings are stupid.

Snow White is dead...

Snow white empties her lungs.  With her left index finger against her left nostril she places the straw to her right, leans down toward the mirror and draws the line straight to her head.  Her eyes water as she reels from the sting.  The mirror that once championed her beauty is no suffocated by mounds of snow white powder.  She sits back with her eyes closed and her teeth clenched.   There are nicotine stains on her fingers.   Her eyes are sunken and dark with pale, pillowy skin underneath.  There is no light there.  Her matted dark hair hangs heavily around her sallow cheeks and deep creases surround her mouth and line her brow.

The castle is cold and silent…still.  The walls that once insulated her with love now exhale a cold clammy breath.  She hollowly glares down at the clouded mirror.  Why didn’t the mirror warn of this?  Why didn’t the mirror speak of this horror?  Now it can speak no more…the magic has faded along with all life in this place.  She smashes her fist down on the glass.  The sound of it’s shatter is accompanied by a faint screeching wail of a death rattle sending clouds of white dust into the air and shards of silvery glass spraying the floor.  Laughing she licks the powdered residue and blood from her hand.  The metallic warmth of her blood mingles with the bitter powder in her mouth creating an intoxicating cocktail.  She swoons back in to her throne.

Sitting there overlooking this vacant hall she realizes she has nothing and is surrounded by everything that is filth all at once.  She begins to cry.  Warm salty tears cleanse her cheeks leaving meandering streaks down her face.  She rises from her seat and falters.  Tripping on her gown she lands prone on the stone floor.  Her dress is tattered and stained with urine and blood among other bodily fluids.  And the  pungent sour smell in the great hall is saturated in every thread.  She rises again only to stumble her way to the main gate.

Staggering out into black the forest she is greeted by nothing…not a peep or a chirp.  The woodland creatures that used to sing to her hide quietly in her presence.  She is the storm.  She howls into the night, “GRIMHILDE! FINISH ME!”  Her plea is unanswered.  

The Evil Queen waits in her tower.  She watches Snow White in the dark water of her cauldron.  Her insides percolating with seething delight at the anguish of her once bright nemesis. “How beautiful she was.  How clear and cool she was…her breath as sweat as her soul.  Now look at her…crawling through the mud and stinking of her own contamination.  She begs me to snuff out her barely flickering light.  But I won’t. She can suffer to the last.  My wrath is to kind for her.  The putridity that she has created is her perfect hell.  Her corruption is my salvation!”  

Grimhilde watches as Snow White claws her way to the river’s edge.  Blankly she looks down at her reflection.  Tears flowing down her muddy cheeks she plunges her face into the icy water.  A rush of bubbles surface.  Her head remains immersed and more bubbles come.  Still she stays with her head under water.  A minute passes.  One big rush of air bursts through the surface of the water.  Then…nothing.  Silence.  And nothing still.

The Evil Queen rejoices spinning and dancing around her cauldron.  She takes one last glance at the still body before she flees her secret chamber to announce, “SNOW WHITE IS DEAD!  RING THE BELLS! SNOW WHITE IS DEAD!”  She leans out of the tower window and releases a loud squawk and in a moment she is greeted by a large grackle.  ”Go to the river and find Snow White.  Pluck out her eyes and bring them back to me.”  Without hesitation her winged servant soars into the night.  Grimhilde waits patiently.  Sitting by the window she leers out at over what is now her kingdom.  A land free of Snow White lies below and is all hers.  She cannot wait to spread the word.  But not without the eyes.  She must have the eyes first.

She rises when she spies her winged beast gliding toward the tower.  Her heart races in anticipation of holding those eyes in her hands.  Almost dizzy with disgusting delight she holds out her arms to the bird that lands on the window’s ledge.  He opens his mouth to release a shrill screech but there were no eyes inside.  He continues to squawk and rattle his message to her.   She releases a cacophonous, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”  It fills the air and trees outside.  Fuming she scurries back to her chamber to scrutinize the water in her cauldron.   Where Snow White’s body once laid there was now nothing.  She smacked the water with her gaunt fingers feverishly as if the image were hiding in it somewhere.  But nothing surfaced.  No Snow White reappeared to her.   

In a wild rage of furious anger she flutters back to the window and shrieks, “Snow White, this is not the end of you and me!  You have not suffered!  You have not tasted the anguish and tears of true pain! No, you have not suffered.  But you will suffer me! You will suffer me!

Maybe tomorrow...

I sit with my legs crossed pretending to read a book.  Waiting.  I feel confident and beautiful.  I feel invincible.  I read the same words over and over.  I glance up from this ruse.  The entrance yields no one of note and yet I note her…A woman in her mid-twenties in skinny jeans and a loose, flowing top.  She’s tall and she glides.  I don’t glide.  I wish I glided.  I wish I was tall.  My confidence is waning.  I look down again.  The words on the page are scrambled and jumbled.  I don’t even remember what book I hold in my hands when I see him.

He approaches the counter.  I hear him order…a tall cappuccino.  I manipulate his words in my head and try to hear him say my name instead.  The young barista smiles at him.  Her eyes seem to stay on him as she turns away.  I watch him.  I beg him to look at me.  He looks down.  I imagine he is my equal in every possible way that I would want…intellectually…spiritually…passionately.  He has to be.  Please let him be.  Please let him see.  The machine whirs as it foams his milk.  He waits patiently, eyeing things on the counter and in the glass displays as if he is going to get something else.  He never does.

She cheerfully returns with his order.  He pays.  My heart starts to race.  Time is running out.  He hasn’t looked.  Please…I’m over here.  Before he turns away from the counter he takes a slow slip.  I love that he can’t wait to taste it.  I imagine I am the milky foam floating on his coffee.  He sucks me in slowly and I pass over his lips into his mouth and linger there before he swallows.  Satisfied he wipes my excess from his mouth.  He turns to exit.  I am undone.

My heart drops into my vacant belly and pounds loudly in my ears.  He is leaving and not seeing.  I feel small…confidence shattered.  I dissolve into liquid and puddle on the floor.  He his outside.  Walking away.  Further away from me with every step.  If he only knew me.  If I was taller I would say hello.  If I was stronger I would ask for his number…or something…anything.  But I am nothing but a wet spot that needs mopping.  And then I will be covered with a little yellow sign that reads…’Caution Wet Floor’.  The only record of my existence in this shop…that yellow sign.  My book is picked up and placed on the counter in case I show up again to claim it.  Maybe tomorrow.

High School...The Torture Chamber

I’ve been so clogged up lately.  Nothing is breaking through…emotionally and creatively speaking.  The story that for some reason is in my head to tell is incredibly uncomfortable.  And yet it lingers in the forefront.  Waiting patiently by the door for me to let it out.  I try to think of other things to write about…the coming of winter…the ever increasing antics of my toddler daughter but no.  This is the story that wants to be told.  I haven’t posted in days for this reason. Well here goes nothing.  

In high school I’m not sure what I was exactly.  I was a musician but I played the piano so I wasn’t a “band geek”.  I was in the chorus and drama club but I don’t know if those groups completely categorized me.  I had a couple of very close friends and I was always friendly…I hope.  I don’t want to be remembered as an asshole.  Looking back if I knew then what I know now…I would have totally made high school my bitch.  As lessons go high school is a long, embarrassing four years of do’s and don’ts.  

The halls are filled with treachery and heartbreak.  Evil lurks in the heart of your sophomore English teacher.  You are sure she is out to get you and maybe even kills bunnies with her bare hands…You just don’t know for sure.  Locker rooms filled with faux designer scents, hair spray and body issues are hazy memory.  Now I walk naked to my room from the shower and spray on whatever-the-fuck fragrance and pull my hair back in a knot.  What we thought was something in high school really turned out to be nothing in real life.  But no one could tell you otherwise then.

On this fine day my sophomore year of high school I was in a foul mood.  I remember being exhausted and angry by the end of the day but not really sure why.  I road home on the school bus ,another social petri dish, alone.  I had a seat all to myself and I was thrilled.  Though I thought it was by choice.  Maybe it wasn’t.  I had a headache and it was loud.  I sulked with my head against the window as the yellow torture chamber lumbered through town finally stopping at the end of my drive and letting me and two others free.

I walked slowly up the long straight drive.  I was glad that this day was over.  My mother will make things right.  I walked in the door and put my books on the table in the kitchen.  I greeted my Mom.  She approached me with her mouth agape.  I felt fear.  What was she looking at? Me?  She yelled…”Oh my god!” What? What are you yelling about?  I look down and there it is…all over my pale pink skirt…blood.  The horror!  The misery!  The pain and embarrassment!  ”Did you just come home from school like that?  How did you not notice this?”  She is still yelling.  And it’s more than I can bear.  I didn’t do this on purpose…prance around school with blood on my skirt to prove my womanhood.  I yell, “I don’t know” and run to my room.  Sobbing as I strip of my clothes.  What a fucking day.  What am I going to do?  Everyone must of have seen this.   I can’t go back.  I can’t.  I have to kill myself…or break my leg…or my foot.   I’m sick…forever.  I can’t go back there.

Around dinner time my mother enters my room.  She sits on my bed where I lay puffy eyed and distraught.  ”I didn’t mean to yell at you”  she comforts.  ”I just didn’t know how you could have missed that.”  I tell her that I would have liked to have noticed it because I didn’t know how long I’d been walking around like that.  Some time that afternoon I had gotten my period.  There was really no telling when…

“I can’t go back.”

“You have to go back.”

“I can’t.  It’s too awful.  I’m so embarrassed.  Everyone is going to laugh and make fun of me.”

“No one is going to say anything about it.”

“Are you crazy?  People get teased everyday.” 

“You can’t stay home because you don’t want to be teased.  Listen girls aren’t going to tease you about it and boys don’t want to talk about periods.”

She had a point.

“Let’s rinse out your clothes and come upstairs for dinner.”

That sounded like a plan I could get into…dinner.  Even though her initial reaction made me cringe she redeemed herself in the end.  

The next day I wore all black to school…black jeans…black shirt…even black undergarments.  Nothing was showing through anything that day.  And my mother was right.  No one brought it up…save one person.  The guy I had a crush on of course.  The person who would end up being my best friend for life is the only person who approached me.  He did it so discreetly and sweetly.  He never mentioned the words blood or period or disgusting.  He was my hero.

I was sitting in the music room waiting for class to start…Music Appreciation.  He entered and sat next to me.  

“You have on all black today.”

“Yes.”  I couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Black everything? Bra and panties too?”

“Yes.”  I giggled.

“Are you okay?”

I turned and looked at him…”Yes.”  He cared.  I wanted to cry but that would have put the emotional icing on the period cake.  So instead I said what Olga would have said to Arnold…”Okay now leave me alone.”  And he did.  

Until this moment I never realized that was probably the moment the universe sealed our fate as lifetime friends.  And that my mother single-handedly got me through high school without me killing myself.  Not for lack of trying.  But that’s a different story.

The oppression of the depression...

The air was heavy.  It was hard to breathe.  Everything was glistening with moisture…even the birthday cake.  Relief was eminent as the tropical storm was said to be moving out to sea.  However, it seemed to crawl over us like a slug leaving a damp slimy trail where it had once slithered.  You could see the moisture in the air.  It was oppressive.  But it did not stop the party.  It trudged on like a wet parade.  Sweat dripping from our noses as we posed for pictures.  

The chips and crackers that were put out for guests had wilted in their bowls in under an hour.  It was as if our home had been picked up and placed in the most dense of rain forests.  Almost impossible to light a cigarette in this atmosphere one feared being attacked by a gargantuan jungle fly as they stood on the front stoop to smoke.  Walking to ones car with little ones you felt the need to protect them from swamp gators and other Bayou predators.  HOW CAN AIR BE SO LIQUID?

Everyone’s hair was lifeless and limp as if we had hiked down to the center of the earth.  We sat on the earth’s core and sang Happy Birthday blotting our faces with balloon adorned napkins.  Soupy ice cream and sweaty cake was on the menu and we were glad to have it.  Our cups and glasses briefly held iced beverages before they melted and warmed and dripped with perspiration.  Water dotting our shirts and laps as we raised them to our lips in a vane attempt to quench our thirst.

This was the first birthday party we had for my niece four years ago today.  It would seem that history is about to repeat itself.  This humidity is cruelty.  I look forward to waking up to taking a sweater adorned drive through the picturesque country side while listening to Ramble On and sipping Pumpkin Spiced coffee.  O Sweet Fall hurry in and push these tropical depressions with their oppressions out to sea.

My days are a constant flux between "awww" and "Fuck!".

Three a.m. my daughter bursts into my room rambling about rain.  I understood nothing that she said except the word rain.  It was not raining at the time.  What?  Just get in…I tell her.  She climbs over me stabbing me repeatedly with elbows and knees.  She squeezes in tight against me.  Her skin is cool.  I begin to drift when I feel her slip her tiny hand into mine.  My heart melts.  I linger there holding her hand trying to be in that moment but knowing any second she will pull it away.  I linger too much.  I like lingering.  That’s why I write I guess…to linger…to experience moments again and again…relive and relive and retell.  There…it’s gone now.  She turned and took her hand with her.  

The morning was quite different.  She woke much earlier than I.  And what better playground than my nightstand.  By the time I opened my eyes she had emptied my water bottle into the bed.  I was lying in a pool.  Barely able to speak I yell…What the hell?  And then I notice her.  Sitting on the bed with fistfuls of white cream.  What is that?  What is that?  On the bed floating in the pool the depleted tube of Hydrocortisone cream.  I use it when she complains that her mosquito bites are itchy.  Releasing a grunt/moan/swear I quickly pull off her t-shirt and clean her hands with it.  All the while she is looking at me as if to say: I was wondering how long it was going to take you to wake up and catch me destroying everything.  I was about to smear this on your laptop.

She softens my heart with her little affections and then whacks me in the shin with her bat of mischievousness.  My days are a constant flux between “awww” and “Fuck!”.