The Matriarch Compact: First Draft

This is a "Magna Carta For Maternal Figureheads" in progress. I intend to get this up to ten points in the treatise. Suggestions are encouraged from objective outsiders.

 Family,

I am sorry if I am a little moody as of late. It is has been a year of social, economic and emotional adjustment for all of us. In order to keep the "bitch monster" in its cage, I have divised this contract outlining a list of needs to be met and, in return, obligations to the tribal unit that I may reciprocate. Please feel free to revise this document within reason to suit yourselves and, if you feel necessary, to seek out legal consultation.

1) Everyone must say "I love you" to each member of the family (pets optional) at least once a day. I know. Ew. Icky. Emotional. But I know you do. We are family. It is a necessary emotional reinforcement to the beauty of that feeling that is integral to our blessed unit and you won't choke on your tongue if you do. It gets easier as you do it more. I promise. As the eldest member of the family you will probably out live me. If the next time someone says "I love you" in earnest it is over my grave, I will spend the rest of your life haunting you as a bitch slapping specter.

Perhaps threatening is not the way to go. Okay. Retract the last two sentences.

2) Time management will include others into consideration. This is not to say that you can't do what you want. But if you are doing it while there is, say, a four inch pile of dust under your bed or your papers from four days ago sitting on the coffee table or your wife/mother has been picking head lice  (or other job specific description) all day, a little room cleaning time or a spontaneous kiss on the neck (husband specific) will make said female not sigh loudly and look clenched for the next two hours when computer oriented entertainment is mentioned. I take time out of my "me" time to do things with you and don't look like I have a bad hemorrhoid. Reciprocation would be appreciated.

3) Debris will be removed from communal areas. All of us. Even me. But at least I am aware that I forgot to remove my snack plate until I see it sitting there in the morning. You people just keep agreeing and not doing it. See? I am crabby just saying it. So just do it. Please. It benefits us all.

This one may considered an addendum to the last one. I'll have to check with my "lawyer" aka the lady sitting next to me in Starbucks who looks smart.

4) Romance. I want some.  I know.  Weird coming from a pragmatic liberal who used to hate surprises. But its says I thought of you and wanted to do something nice. Children may replace the word "Romance" with "Updating parents on weekly school progress."

5) Apply "nice people" voices even when others are being assholes. Especially if others are being assholes. Snarky and trite begets snarky and trite. And no one likes a know it all. Or a "no" it all.

I am using this pun as a snarky and trite trap. If they fall for it, I allow myself an extra 300 calories. If not, I get peace. This is called self-applied amusement manipulation. And they wonder why I smile when they get angry.

 6) Lying is intolerable.  There is nothing worse to me than being lied to. It hurts me and I want to go sit in the dark. Trust issues that ensue from being found out are not worth the refuge of temporary deceit. So what if I don't like what you have to say? Don't be afraid of me. I am your family. There is very little that you can say that is worse to me than being betrayed by deception. And if I do catch you lying, I will disable every computer account that you possess including but not exclusively Minecraft, World of Warcraft, youporn(ask your father),Facebook and your homework information site.

A little much? I think not.

7) When mentioning all other women with the exception of your mother, grandmothers and certain sister like figures, I am to be reminded that I am the best one. This includes teachers, other parents, ex-girlfriends and hot waitresses at Hooters. Some parents are more fun than the ones that you have to live with because they don't have a cat that is your responsibility to feed or have to live with the multitude of stray socks I find strewn across the living room. You don't think I haven't noticed that your top ten face book friends are either relatives or......never mind.  Insecurity is bred, not born. You aid in the creation of my neediness, jealous huffs and extra loud dish washing.  A compliment will get you miles of smiles.

This may be unreasonable. 

8) Door slammers will have their knobs removed. Jan Brady is not a role model. Neither is Stanley Kowalski.

This, on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable.

Sigh.

I will finish this later. Oprah used to be on now and I need to take a moment of silence to fill the void.

I Love You,
Mother Of The House

Sir, We Have A Word Hostage Situation Here Or Let My L Word Go

Every time a school system cuts a budget and tosses out a class like Creative Writing over, say, Television Production I think to myself, "We are one step closer to living under crawl spaces." Words have always been as powerful, if not more powerful, as guns. No one goes around shooting people without words to start it. Well, most people anyway. And sometimes it isn't even verbalizing the words. Not using them can do the trick too, especially when done in a blatant and deliberate way. That's why the word "Love" can  mess up a mind on so many levels.

It can ruin lives. It can repair lives. Nothing is easier to feel and so hard to say. Saying it renders your underbelly exposed and rejection of these words can feel worse than death. Verbalizing love can signify forgiveness. Reciprocation after a long war of emotions can heal trust and mend wounds. Misuse with manipulation of the words can create black deep hate. Withholding it can grows an elephant in the room so large that it sticks in your throat until it can't come out anymore. Saying it too early can stop the future of a relationship with uncomfortable silence. Saying it too late can be....too late.

Someone said that men fall in love with their eyes, women with their ears. I don't know about this. Maybe initially. But I know that my male friends are as subject to the effects of hearing the words as much as my female friends.  If anything, I think they suffer more over the word "love" because often it doesn't come out as easily. If a sense of pride has been compromised and trust has been damaged before on some level, it could be a long time after the feelings actually return that you will hear that word. Because saying "I love you" is sometimes admitting that the anger is gone too, or worse, that this person has emotional power over you.

A boyfriend whom I had been dating for a few months started randomly acting like a complete jack ass. He was picking fights. He was slamming doors. He was stomping around being generally a social irritant. I couldn't figure out what I had done. Finally, I had had enough and said, "What the hell is wrong with you?" He inhaled, turned a little red and then yelled, "I think I'm in love with you! UGHH!" And then I said, " I love you too and I'm not too pleased about that either but there you have it." We didn't last forever because we were incompatible but it did go on for a couple of years and we really did love each other.

No wonder we are such a nervous society. "Love" is used in so many ways. Relationships that used to be forever are considered disposable when the love part is blackened when the inevitable downswings in the relationship force a quit....like a Macbook that has crashed....forgetting love that is buried under a pile of errors. Patience as a society is not our strong suit.

But if love is in there, it drives us anyway. We build our relationship's foundation on it. Even though "I hate you" can do so much damage,  I don't think it stings nearly as much as "I don't love you." These words may be brothers as weapons but "I hate you" slides out so much easier and can be taken back with less humiliation. "I hate you" doesn't have nearly the power as love. You can't keep the war going, you can't manipulate power by withholding "I hate you."

And you can't cause the joy and make life feel worth living the same way that the word "love" does either.

Forgiving The Eggshells

There are few things worse than living in a battle zone that won't admit that it is a battle zone. It's like trying to figure out how a cold wind blows. It surrounds you, makes you feel bad but you can't pin point how it is hurting you. It is uncomfortable and spins into more resentment. It is the price of bad communication via anger that is buried in denial.


Many of us will recognize festering anger immediately if it is right after a bad fight. Everything is fine. But is it? That fight was really recent. The knife wounds have barely started scabbing up yet. You know that you are speaking civilly but all of the voices are rerunning inside your head in the very very back. The resolutions may be there but the safety that was rattled in the relationship is not solid again. No one is trusting the other. Yet. Until you are sure it isn't going to bite you in the ass. It is even harder if there has been no fight that you know of and you still have to live with the anger.


Sometimes, some people say that they are fine but their actions are permeated with resentment. You can feel the anger if it is directed at you but the person won't concede to being mad. They smile without their eyes matching the mouth but the body never completely relaxes. The hand is in a balled fist. They flinch when they are touched.


It takes a whole lot of denial to maintain the anger. Trying to live with it that can be maintained for a while. Sooner or later, though, something has to give. Or the walls become so completely solid that uncomfortable becomes normal.  I guess it depends on the stubborn elements of the other parties involved.


How long can it last? Years? Whole life times?  I guess it depends on the person that is the begrudged that won't be openly begrudged and the quality of life the subjects at hand are willing to live with.


In my experience, a non-friendship based roommate situation tends to get resolved the fastest because you are essentially strangers other wise. It comes to a head fairly quickly if it is going to come to a head at all.  Someone gets kicked out or you learn to live with it.  Long as the bathroom stays clean and the bills gets paid and you don't have to sleep in the same room, oh well if they can't communicate well. Moving is inconvenient but you still can if it really stinks. If you can't avoid walking on egg shells, step on them. Too bad if the roommate has bad communication skills. Not your problem if you can deal with a grumpy demeanor. 


Friends who hold quiet grudges are stickier because the urge to cut and run is often bigger than the bullshit that you have to get through to admit there is a problem. Pick a fight? Confrontation? You might be willing to let it go but you may not even know what needs to be dropped. They smile tightly and say in a distant tense voice, "Wrong? No. Nothings wrong." And you know they are lying. You can feel it. It isn't your imagination. One of the beauties of a truly good friendship is that you have probably had moments like this before. You lived. And if there isn't a way to reconcile the friendship to a place you both feel comfortable with each other, maybe you just aren't friends anymore. 

For me, relatives are the least complicated because it takes a whole lot to get rid of a relative.  It is safe to approach the angry person and say, "Hey, you are obviously pissed off. What's wrong with you?" Openly. Without fear. I know I am going to spend the rest of my life with them so it is better to call them to the mat via kindness, bluntness or sarcasm and get it over with. I grew up with these people. Our communication styles are the same. We know how to speak to each other because we sound similar. Hopefully, no one is looking for a fight under it all, but if they are, at least I am going to get a solution.

Spouses, life partners, live-in significant others are the ones that really suck. Really really suck. Because anger usually has some kind of trust issue attached to it. It smells like hurt and you caused it somehow. This is a person you chose to take into your life and the person chose to have you in theirs. In an extreme situation, they  can un-choose. You can lose someone who is so attached to your heart, ego and mental well being that if there is a wall of anger that they won't speak about, you may be a hesitant to find out just what is going on in there. You may have come too  close to being a statistical example of the American standard of long term relationship failure already (see US divorce rates) and will do anything to keep the good that has been re-builit. 


It is almost easier to have an "incident" so that there is something to attach the behavior to. Plain old just angry hanging in the air is like living in cloud of sulfur and you feel like your choice is risk the good or  slap on a gas mask and live with it. Sometimes it is residual from an old pain. Sometimes it is from the pile of resentments that has been stacking up, a feeling of lack of respect. Sometimes it is a result of an inability to communicate properly in general, learned long ago and not realized till now. You can go to therapy. You can try to point out the obvious but the denial may be too strong and just anger them further. It may be better to let it pass, rebuild the basis of trust in the relationship. Let them be. It's all a crap shoot.


In the meantime, you are punished. You may deserve it. It's hard to tell since you aren't exactly sure about the specifics. Either way, its a lot easier to ignore the pain of the other person when you are on the controlling side  because it means you have to lose the power the anger gives you and forgive, let it go. Most of us hold a grudge at some point unless, possibly, you have excellent communication skills and are schooled in self-analysis. I try to recognize it in me so that I don't have to be in unnecessary pain nor do I cause it. It doesn't always work because sometimes I don't even know I am angry till the writing is on the wall. And I may not be able to get rid of the cause of irritation, but I can chose to be happier in general and let it go when I do recognize it, if I can't. Forgive. Move on. Anger and hate are so close to each other and they both fester. Life can be so much better.

Hide The Women And Children! The Hormones Have Crashed The Castle Walls!!!!

Our household has been declared a drama free zone more or less since the husband and I decided to reconcile the marriage and family unit. It is much better. We choose our words more carefully, consider the effect of them on others, try to consider how it feels in the other person's shoes. Which makes a hormone imbalance akin to a pipe bomb in a glass store.

In a good frothy tither, I have my husband  accused falsely of not wanting to admit he is married on Facebook so he can replace me with a younger woman leaving me no choice but to divorce him and marry my last hope for security, an aging road hack who won't shut up about his time on Carson because who else would want me. It evolves into the husband not worrying about anything but himself himself himself because I am utterly unloveable, punishable for eternity for my past sins. I am old. Fat. Lopsided. There is a monologue of woe is me that makes my inner voice sound like it is locked in a Turkish prison. I am convinced that I am ugly and cling to my poor spouse for approval like a barnacle in heat.  I pray that someone flirts with me to give me my self worth back. I just know I am going to leave this earth in poverty, shrouded in failure as a comic, writer, actor and lice killer. And seriously not funny. And I need to eat a cake. I wish that I could disappear. Only the gym can save others from my skewed logic because I know I can be calmed down using self-abuse aka the tread mill. And if I can't get to the gym....I shall.....die.

To be fair to myself,  I ain't the only ball of chemicals in this apartment. In fact, not too many days ago I was sitting in a stew of  nicotine withdrawal and moody tween that I could only defend myself from by curling up in the fetal position under the covers and pray that no one found the lump until the stench of emotions passed back into the gate of sanity. But I don't get points for my tolerance transferable to my weepy depressed moments, nor should I. Although I want to really really hard. It would be so much easier to feel like a victim, my go-to mood when there is too much of some hormone thing floating around in my brain.

The good thing about being this slightly less elastic age, is that I recognize the patterns. I still recall the first time I put two and two together, recognized that the onslaught of irrational anger and my body were tied together. I was working in a restaurant in NYC probably agitated already but not to the degree that warranted this feeling.  I was fighting an urge not to throw something at another waiter. He just PISSED ME OFF. And I was thinking "Why the hell don't you all just LEAVE ME ALONE" which is generally not an option when working in the service industry. And, of course, "NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME!"  And something in the the middle of my mental rant clicked. "Oh," I thought, "I'm in a mooooodddd." And it made it so much easier. This wasn't me. It was my body chemistry. I acknowledged my erratic mental state and asked people to keep their distance as much as it was possible until the path cleared. Then I went about my business, quietly bitching the whole time when my back was turned to anyone in my path staff or customer, praying that it wasn't entirely a waste of time  being there by killing the tip opportunities with my foul angst.

Truth is, those hormone mood swings are nothing next to a really severe imbalance. I used to have a lesion in my temporal lobe and, post-surgery after it was removed, the parts in my head were so damaged that my husband was a little afraid to sleep next to me for fear of  not making it through the night in tact. That was a different kind of insane. The monologue of logic that usually accompanied pms or too much testosterone was drowned out by red anger. I wasn't just pissed off. I was FURIOUS. There was still just enough of me going on to relinquish to the tiredness that accompanied it. Thank God. Eventually, my head healed but, at the time, it...and I ....was scary as hell. I hated everything and wanted relief by releasing the anger. No matter what was in my path. At that moment, I was bat shit crazy. I guess in retrospect, he earned a little nicotine withdrawal pissy-ness. At least he didn't threaten to stab me in my sleep.

Bodies do these things when they change.  They adjust to different elements introduced into their make up, evening out the literal imbalance induced. We are machines as much as we are personalities.  We have fluids that need balance, parts that need tune ups and electricity running the synapsis in our heads that occasionally blow sparks. Its easy to forget that when we deal with another human being. Sometimes, our parts just ain't running well. We forgive the car for needing an oil change. I will try to remember to give the cranky 50-ish lady who is flop sweating in the check out line at T.J.Maxx the same courtesy.

Image via MDanys/Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindaugasdanys/

The Terminator

I don't tell people what my new line of work is very often. It takes a special kind of personality to be comfortable with it. The risk of the job over plays the practicality of income to them. The more I know and train, the safer I feel but some minds just can't wrap their brains around it. There are two types of people in my life now. The ones who get it, understands that this is an answer to the question of poverty that rules our world right now and see the necessity of the job in our society. And then ones that I don't tell because they won't let me in their house again if they knew.

I cannot tell you how much I love my new job, regardless of how others may feel about it. My need to hunt on a very very small scale is ingrained into my personality. I love to  seek out, observe and discover. Years as a stand up comic has given me the training to navigate extreme situations, defuse high emotions.  I hate defeat and am just obsessive enough to make sure that this does not happen. No one will get out alive on my watch. I know that I won't be able to sleep unless I make absolutely sure that I will not have to come back and rectify an error of sloppiness. My boss is a kind person and I do not wish to bring shame on her company.

It has to be done. Many try to handle it themselves. I am not inexpensive because I have the tools to be more thorough than the usual methods which are slowly becoming less effective. My eye is trained to see the issue at hand faster than most and I know how to assess the situation and eradicate the culprits in the most effective way.

I do not leave a mess for them to handle later, after the trauma has past. I will help them so that you will not be taken advantage of a second time by the same family of badness. I see the enemy and respect them for what they are. My job is left at my job. No traces come back with me because I understand the adversary  and know how to keep them from coming home with me. But usually it is better to let people wonder what that big bag is for, why that lady is carrying an unmarked suitcase to the neighbor's house. Because a lot of times they just don't understand that this is a good job, a clean job. I know what I am doing.

I stop family's from suffering. I remove adversity from the world. I do what chemicals are failing to maintain as they become stronger and gain immunity. I am a Lice Terminator.

Not a lice public transit system. Please still let me into your house.

The Marital Compliment

"Where the hell is my sock? She always puts them in the same place and there is not sock here. Hey! Oh. There she is. Wow. Her ass looks great like that...."

There it is! Grab it! Not the ass. The compliment. Grab it in your head and let it fall out of your mouth before it sinks into the abyss of your head, covered with bitching about your socks. It will do you far more good being verbalized than flitting away with the thousands of other positive things that could have made your life better. And hers.

My husband and I were discussing why I was being so cold last night. Our communication skills have taken a turn for the better in the last couple of months but there is a strangeness in our relationship too. We don't know where it is safe to tread. At one point I said that I didn't feel like I heard good things about myself. He said he said plenty of nice things. Like "thank you." He always says "thank you." Which is true and I appreciate it. But it ain't the same as "I like the way you smell."

I think I am not alone when I say that I probably created a safety issue. I am sure there have plenty of times that he has tried to say something nice or grab at something and I either asked what the ulterior motive was or brushed it off. There seems to be a rash of long marrieds around me with anger issues and mistrust. Its taken me a good scare in the relationship to admit that I don't care what the motive is. I want that pleasant thought that flows from his brain to exit safely from his mouth and, frankly, I don't give a shit what the motive is. I'm really sorry that I made you feel bad for thinking something nice, even if perhaps it was a little raunchy. Raunchy is okay if you have been together for 13 years and way better than silence.

Life in a domestic situation can be so complicated, especially with kids. There are layers of needs in a partnership. We need to figure out expenses. We need to get groceries and figure out what would be good for dinner that will satisfy everyone. We need to cover childcare for work conflicts. We need time alone. We are in this life together and it can be draining. It is easy to resent each other and shut down. The compliments get buried under the five hundred other things in our head and we don't always feel safe to express ourselves.

I get plenty of compliments about my physicality in the outside world. A lot of times they are a little creepy or, at their best, they don't mean nearly as much as a good thought from the person that I spend so much time surviving in this life next to. The person who has seen me sick, pregnant, full of self loathing, bent up in unseemly positions, in a bikini with an extra twenty pounds on me and vomiting. There is not another human being on earth that "Your eyes are pretty" means more from because he knows the truth of what I can be on a very bad day when they are red and swollen.

A good thought towards another person is a gift that is wasted locked away. I think it is always worth the risk to put it forth and it is a shame that so many of us take it for granted until it becomes something that causes resentment. On the other hand, chances are that at times there was a motive attached to the compliment otherwise we may not feel that way. But so what. Take those kind words. Say them anyway.  You know that they are coming from a genuine place in the thought process and if you do it often enough without a reason, maybe your partner will learn to just appreciate the gift. It's always so easy to do in the beginning without the history of life to complicate it but I think I value the kind thought from my partner even more that I know that. It is so easy to do in a new relationship but it means so much more when a person knows you so well that they could easily forget to tell you the good things.

And P.S. Yeah. It works both ways.  Don't I know it!

Leapin' Yuppies and Flyin' Sensible Shoes

He went whipping past my car going full tilt, long legs fully extended like a Kenyan Olympian in the Boston Marathon. His outfit moved easily with his body because he wasn't a suit guy. He existed in the more practical LL Bean vortex. He wasn't a fancy man. He was practical. His hair was trimmed close to his head with a side part, maybe fixed with some sort of pomade. His face was Clark Kent handsome and it said to me, the passerby in the car driving home, "I am running in public. Yes. I am."

The train was just pulling into the station, my husband Jason boarding it as I turned the corner after dropping him off at the platform. I was glad that he didn't have to run because his backpack looked heavy. The man who went by my car was less laden. He looked like he could afford smaller electronics. I reckonned he rarely got to show off his atheletic skills outside of a gym he fit into his regimented schedule.

He looked like he had a high school athlete. Maybe even college. Tall with long muscles as part of the gift of his body's natural genetic code. Somewhere along the line his life turned a more practical corner. He became a responsible commuter.  He looked secure and tidy, although today something in life made him tardy.  Maybe he secretly liked it because late was somewhat edgy.

A man right behind him was running full out as well but he didn't look as good at it, more like a dad chasing a rambunctious child heading for traffic. A lady crossed behind my car doing a run with a little hitch then walk fast run with a little hitch walk fast run in her somewhat sensible yet fashionable boots. A half a block down behind her another lady in a lime green Talbots vest and brown shoes was hobbling as speedily as she could without actually unbending her legs at the knees, irritation written across her face. I wanted to yell out the window, "Give it up and relax! It's futile without commitment!"

Collectively, they were off to a bad start in the morning. Something in life tripped them up from their regime and had messed with their schedule. Some of them made it but some of them failed and had to wait for the next one. They probably felt punished. But I bet the Clark Kent athlete man was saying a little "Thank you, God" as he realized  that he would make the meeting or get time to stop at Dunks or whatever it was that made him  not want to be late the first place. His knew his bad morning had been salvaged with his superior running ability. Perhaps he would never play sports like he had in his youth again but it was still worth something. And today he got to run in public.

The Lady Birds In The Locker Room

They all have old New England names like Helen and Alice and Mary and Edith. Solid. Friendly. Nothing crazy like Karen or Cathy. All of them are in their 70's and 80's.  I can't figure out if they know each other from outside of the YMCA or if some of them came in as friends. Usually they are in the locker room together around noon after they get done with swimming, traipsing around in their one pieces and flip flops, catching up as they speak through the dressing areas, putting their shoes on in front of their lockers or perched in a row in their bathing suits in the sauna, like a flock of pigeons under a bridge abutment, tittering away in the heat before they take showers in their swimming duds.

Early on in my days at the Y, they used to irritate me. I would go into the sauna with my music and try to meditate but the wall of noise upon the return of the ladies from their swim was impossible to drown out. It was like trying to get peace in a chicken coop. Lately, though, I've been going through a crisis and it has forced me to mellow out a lot. I have had to also learn to appreciate my own attributes a little more, make me appreciative of what I have. Watching the Lady Birds helps cement my attempts.

I like them. And I admire them. They have a wonderful positivity. No one ever seems to be in a bad mood. You can see that they maintain peace in their lives, maybe because they value the fact that they can still go to the pool and swim while they are talking about sick friends going into nursing homes and dead husbands. And live husbands. They are long past worrying about their bodies as tools for attraction, sexuality having left the stadium. They seem to treat their marriages as old businesses with really great partners that they are friends with.

You can tell that they are very good to their friends. They don't seem to talk about themselves as much as they do about their concern about each other. How was the vacation? Where is Edith? Oh? Dementia is going to kill her husband, so sad. We have to have coffee and give her a little break. Today I heard one lady.... God bless her.....say, "85 isn't old if you are healthy. Heck, even 65 is old if you are unhealthy."And I wished I could put it on a tee shirt. Why, I thought, I am positively infantile next to them!

One of them lost her locker key. Turns out it was the wrong locker and it was still in it. She was extremely patient, waiting for the lady to return with the wrong spare locker key. After she realized her mistake, we all laughed. There was no embarrassment or irritation for the loss of time. It was funny. We all agreed that having bad eyes was such a nuisance. I thought about how I had bad eyes too but hers probably trumped mine because hers were old and bad. The ladies are probably still talking about it, teasing her joyfully.

During my crisis I lost a lot of weight. I like not wearing clothes now if I don't have to.  The ladies are modest with their bodies but they don't seem to mind me walking around naked. On the contrary, I think that they would do the same if they still felt like they could, a silent "God bless you" for my frilly girl undies with nontraditional not proper lady cut, ignoring my 21st century shaving habits. I've noticed in the Y locker room that there tends to be more modesty in general than in places that I used to go to in NYC. But the ladies don't seem to judge.  It's a locker room. Live and let live. They are too busy talking about their friend's sick husband and how the man at the desk always give the locker key to a person just as you sit your belongings down in front of that very space isn't that always just the way?

They make me feel young and they give me hope for being older. They exercise every day. They have an attitude and social life that I envy. Their husbands are part of their lives like their limbs, not like boyfriends.  It's hard to tell if the husbands are alive or not and there is no animosity or venom I see in so many younger couples. They just are who they are as a unit.  Or were. They are a singular noun. "The Joneses." Like "the house" or "the kid." Their friends are there with them now. That is whom they chose to focus on. The lack of drama permeates the room.

I want that. I look forward to paying the price of lost youth for that. The worst has happened. They aren't pretty young things trying to hold onto men or losing jobs or raising children or not meeting bills because their incomes keep fluctuating. That part is done. Now they take their aching bodies to the pool. It isn't as much fun to move any more, but everyone has that problem. There are worse ones. Like being dead. And right at that minute, the Lady Birds are in the sauna at the Y while it is winter in New England. They have talking to do. And that is that.

The State of The Honey Crisp

The other day the husband and I were back in my home state of New York driving around the rural area that we lived in while he completed his undergrad studies. There are always a couple of places that we love to stop at if we can. We ate lunch at the bakery. Popped into the Starbucks he used to work at. Took a short walk down the rail trail. And we stopped at Dressel's for honey crisp apples. OMG, as the kids say. O.M.G.

You can taste the Catskill sun and the neighboring Shawnagunk rock climber's sweet sweet sweat in them (Too much? Fill in your own adjective clump here). You can hear the perfect crunch snap when you bite into it and feel the smooth firm texture of the skin against your teeth. I have traveled many hours to score a bag of these apples, so abundant during the season that you can still buy them from cold storage at the farm in February when our local farms ran out in October at the latest.

We have apples in Massachusetts. In the fall, I love to go picking at a neighboring farm because they have such diverse species, some of which I've never heard of before, which says a lot since I was raised on a tree farm. I am not anti-New England fruit but I have yet to find a honey crisp apple to match what we have in New York. I'm sorry. It's a fact.

In most other states, I think that they would take my opinion in stride. It isn't terribly polite for me to go around spouting negativity about local produce in general. But it is produce. A minor infraction of ethics, maybe. In the anti-New York area though, you would think I burned the tree down and used it to write racial slurs with the ashes on your grandmother's front door. Yes. I know. Yankees suck. Whatever. But our honey crisp apples make all of the world smile with their eyes close when they bite into them, not just nod and go, "It's an apple."

There are somethings that actually are better in some states than others. I will concede to your damn clam chowder, okay? Massachusetts, no one is going to take away your Pilgrims and no one can touch your drunks for sheer gusto during a sporting event. But your honey crisp apples aren't Dressel's honey crisp apples and Dressel's is in Gardiner, NY. Unless you plan on uprooting their trees in the dead of night and transplanting them in Lowell, this is, like I said, a fact. Our honey crisps are better than your honey crisps. Boom. Let the egging of my house commence.

The Ballad Of The Unsung Hero

My awe towards the band instructor has no bounds. The man must be partially deaf or have the patience of a saint. He doesn't look like a drinker but I wouldn't be surprised or blame him a bit. Because you can get one or two kids that are genius and nurture them and appreciate their gifts but throw them in a roomful of other instrument rentals and it will not matter. They will inevitably be drowned out.

I went to see my daughter in her middle school band and chorus concert tonight. The menu of events alternated between different choruses and bands in accordance to grade. It began with the 5th graders and wrapped up with the blended efforts of 7th and 8th grades. The abilities progressed with the age of the students so the performance quality evolved as we went along. For this reason, I could pay continuous attention.  I mean, besides my daughter's part when she plays drums in the 6th grade band. Because she's good. Just saying.

It was smart to kick things off with the chorus. Bands don't have the saving grace of the sweet voices of children.  You can attribute some kudos to the  lilting sounds emoting from the adorable even with the occasional cracking of puberty. A band...well, my kid can play the shit out of a congo and that's all that really matters.

I played the clarinet for two years when I was her age. Then I played the oboe for several more. It was really hard to march without the oboe going up my nose so I became the drum majorette. The chest on the school's majorette uniform was about two sizes too small. I can't recall how I wound up with the job. I suspect it may have something to do with a conspiracy to stop me from being near reed instruments. Possibly the oboe "disappeared." Maybe the band instructor gave up on my ability to play but I doubt it because that would be like weeding out a cabbage in a garden full of coleslaw. And damned that band teacher loved his coleslaw even though it often smelled like sauerkraut.

There he was up on the borrowed high school stage, waving the heck out of his baton, genuinely enthused by the progress of the children who blew into an instrument that started out sounding like a sick duck and evolved into sounding like a car horn. He taught each one the baby steps and probably can hear where they might be someday if their joy for their new instrument isn't replaced by a MMO.  In the meantime, though, when the rest of us were intently listening, trying to absorb the sweet notes among the tangy ones,  I thanked my daughter for her choice of instrument (nothing fueled by air), her sense of rhythm and the man who has listened to her pounding on it for the last two years.

Boobs

I know that by writing this noun in the title, I will raise my number of hits on this blog. Behold the power of the bussom. It is a beautiful thing. It is also a pretty stupid thing. And an inconvenient thing.

Growing boobs was a little shocking and embarrassing, especially to  a late bloomer like I was. It really seemed as though my chest got sore and then these growths sprung from my chest like two large zits almost over night.  I had accepted that I was doomed to be flat chested and was cool with it. I had a chesty sister. I also had a not so chesty sister. It seemed that the chesty sister didn't get much for the inconvenience and the less chesty sister in an era before sports bras seemed freer.  Over one summer, my skinny pubescent body went horribly awry and people began to direct conversations to my chest. It did not make me feel like a winner.

I see my daughter showing signs of the onset of breasts. Its hard not to feel bad for her although I will make a conscious effort to do the Yay! Puberty is part of life and welcome to the threshhold of womanhood! thing. Poker face it with a smile. But really? Right this very minute my chest hurts like hell because these physical projections are attached to my hormonal and reproduction system. They aren't just flaps of skin stuffed with fat and silicone. They are ruling my comfortability. Sorry about the things to come, kid, I'll think without saying it out loud.

Don't get me wrong. I don't always hate my boobs.  Ensconced in the proper underwear, they have given me an edge in life.  They are excellent tools. I know damned well when my chests are working for me and if someone is dumb enough to be kinder to me because they like staring at them, bully for me. I also know this attitude is dragging all of that  bra burning back in my childhood back into the stone age. But oh well. I am in show business. The cave men still have industry power.

On the other hand, in the times when I have been very very thin and the bust is considerably wee, sleeping on my stomach feels really great. The grass is always greener, I guess.

I went to the doctor yesterday partly for my sore chest. My poor husband inquired about it. I told him a little rudely, in a sense, back off. Its between me and my doctor. I justified it in my head with the idea that I don't probe into his prostate examination appointments (yeah...I went there...live with it).  There are certain body parts that, after being married for awhile, have an essence of co-propriety that I conveniently ignored. The truth is, when they are constantly effecting my sense of comfort, I can't get away from my boobs. They are literally stuck to me. They aren't just something to stare at in skin mags, grab occasionally and, in a non-breast possessor's worst case scenario, catch cancer. They have parts and dimensions and textures. I just didn't want to give them more attention than they were already getting today. I was sick of them and they had rendered me crabby. The poor bastard, living with me and my...as the porn folks say....luscious orbs.

Tomorrow I will love them again. We've been together too many years with a history of respect, an appreciation for what we have been through together, incentive to grow old together because we know each other so well and, up until now, aged gracefully in unison with the rest of me. I will dress them in fine lingerie. Support them. Not take them for granted. Find them something pretty to make them feel wanted. But today I am not speaking to them.

The Hum Of Being Human

Not so long ago I was training beverage distributors for a well known company, mostly in the midwest.  At first it was novel but the work load was monumental.  Paper work, travel arrangements and event planning piled up.  A lot of it was done in hotel rooms in between trainings and traveling from airport to airport. It was rare that in the three months I was on the road, I was home long enough to be a comic.  To be a creative person at all.  During this time, I had obligated myself to a weekend gig as the host for a small music festival that was organized by my friend in Lowell, MA.  I don't remember if I was nervous.  I'm not even sure how well I did.  I just remember being in the middle of some really amazing musical performers.  Got to watch them from the best seat in the house, two feet away from the stage.  I think it saved my sanity.  For one weekend, I felt me again.

There are some religions in the world that forbid dancing.  They monitor music.  See creativity as suspect, a direct route to carnal desires and the devil.  I never could figure out how something so obviously coming from God could be misconstrued. Creativity, to me, is the voice of the soul. Music touches us because it is basic, part of our fabric. Even the simple rhythms and noises from the world can be turned in to music in the right hands.  The musically gifted can pull it from the world and manipulate it into something the rest of us can hear too. That can move our bodies and souls in all sorts of directions.

I am one of those people that need music.  If I can't find it, I will make it myself.  But I have to have it in my life or it is too quiet.  Discovering new music is discovering a companion that I will take everywhere with me, in a hum if the electronic devices are not readily available.  If I don't have it, I feel deprived of something essential. Like that with that job that sent me to the midwest? It wasn't the constant flow of work that drained me. It was the constant flow of work with no creative stimulation.  No heart.  Nothing new to find in the sounds around me.  Just the drilling of normalcy, pounding footsteps to the march of duty, movement forward with no heartfelt guidance thumping a beat to flow in. Like a dead person with motorskills. Never again.

Restaurant Angst

I have been sitting in the Cafe for about ten minutes now. No one on the waitstaff has said a word. In their defense, they all seem to be very nice and may not have noticed. It is one of those lovely mellow moments in a normally busy place with the added confusion of laptops keeping most table turnover  in a holding pattern. I forgive them.

This is new to me. I am a former high strung New Yorker and bad waiter. Patience is not my strongest point in a restaurant situation. I used to take it really personally. "Stop afflicting me with your incompetence!" I would yell in my head and shoot them ugly glares. What a relief to just not give a shit any more.

Somewhere along the line really bad things happened to my family. It used to be so much easier to look at the  the pain annoyances in my own life and cling on to my own image of being a victim, try to bury my head in the shit storm sand but, you know?...anger really wears you out.

A while back I was doing a murder mystery playing an irate restaurant manager.  Pissed Off was her defining characteristic. She stomped around and bitched for three hours straight. I maintained her inner victim until she finally....if I remember correctly....shot someone. Or wrestled someone to the ground. Or antagonized someone else into shooting someone. One of them. Whatever it was, I finished the night and went home exhausted with a headache. Whether she was real or not, it was my body carrying around that real angst and it totaled me for a whole day.

I'm finding out in my way past 40 years that sometimes it just ain't worth it. There is too many real problems out there waiting for me. The truth is, the restaurant is just slowing down its ability to make more money, I was warm, dry and not particularly hungry at that moment and no one was yelling at me or making me feel bad in any other form other than being too busy to notice my existence.

The waiter came over and was very apologetic. He was also handsome and seemed to be a sweet person. I took my time being at his table with my laptop open and he didn't seemed to be pissed off back at me for camping, either. I will come back and don't care if he ignores me. Sometimes its nice to be left alone without the pressure of a menu anyway.

Music Hath Testicles To Sooth The Savage Teats.

First of all, I apologize for the title. It just came out that way. And it made me laugh.

Okay. On to business. My daughter has developed a deep disdain for Justin Beiber. I know some folks may agree but she is 11 and a half. There isn't a whole lot to compare it to.  And, truth is, when it comes to mindless hooks, he isn't a horrible thing. It's music. Regardless of your definition.

I blame myself. For years I cringed at my husband's fixation with the band Journey. I came from a different era. He came from the loins of a now soft rock disc jockey in Texas. I was a former lyric soprano, who, as it turns out, was really an alto forced into lyric soprano servitude by a wayward choir mistress in church who couldn't keep it out of the rafters, never really being able to hit the notes without hurting something. He was a dreamy Donny Osmond-like tenor.

It made sense that I would rebel and be drawn to overly emotional music like punk and lyric whores like My Chemical Romance. That I would love the drama of rock operas like "American Idiot" and loved blasting Bad Brains when embracing my anger trying to find parking in downtown Boston. Adored quirky jumping notes when Regina Spektor sang about my old home, lower Manhattan. Sang along with pride about assholes hurting female mojo with 1960's girl groups.

A lot of times I was running with the outcry and the music was secondary. Or, I would reach out for the other side of the same high. I loved the pure sensation of pianists like Lucavidi Eunadi and George Winston. And I looked down on  simple things, all of those love songs about not getting love or getting dumped by love or loving you in very unhealthy way that insinuates stalker tendencies aka unrequited love, or finding out your love is a douche bag or riding the high of first loving feelings aka it won't last love or all the things love can do to you that, come to think of it, don't always turn out well because love almost inevitably became complicated but feels really great all the same.

Its country music that turned me. I had been raised with a father who loved blue grass and country (he played guitar in a band when he was younger). He liked that twangy Hank Williams Sr. old school country. It wasn't until after his death when I got into  his reel to reel tapes that I found out that he loved a lot of the same stuff that I began to seek out after I heard the "Our Brother Where Art Thou" sound track. It was a life changer. It was the first time that I began to get past the not always pleasant nasal qualities and the old fashioned-ness to it and started to hear the musicianship involved. The olde timey gueetar players had chops. A steel string gueetar didn't ruin a song. It was just different. I began to appreciate classical anything more. To put aside the bigotry and admire the skill. To relax the fuck up and open the mind.

Dad and his friend Gibson

Recently, I have been spending a lot of time with the husband's "Journey Complete" songbook. I can play some of the simpler ones badly on the piano. I've been spending more time on with the notes and can admire the sheer quantity of music, the catchy hooks. It is mostly love songs and I am trying but my inner romantic has a knee jerk gag reflex. I often want to yell at Steve Perry, "Buck it up, Son! Being a wimp will only drive her away!" But, you know, it has its place. It took talent to write.

I have learned to love them, subtly. My far more romantic husband is a love song kind of man. I am a stand up comic with anger issues. Together we give the world balance but I have grown to appreciate and, yes, embrace the appeal of a good song of about love and frustration.

My husband and I always recognized the importance of having music around our child. We sang to her. He played the guitar for her, the one that we bought just before she was born so that we would be able to always have songs in her life. There is often the radio or some other form of music playing, especially when her dad and I are together working in the kitchen. We got an electric piano (it looks real...but its not!) and we find her fingering out notes to songs on it on her own. She plays drums in band at school and is pretty darned good, I must say. For Christmas,we got her a guitar after she started showing interest for my crappy ukulele and her dad's guitar.  There has not been a time in her life without the importance of music being prevelant.

I guess the Justin Beiber thing is  a sign for what is coming. Opinions formed to impress others maybe? Narrowness for things that we don't want to like because it may make us look uncool.  I too have caught myself  listening to a little Justin, bouncing along until I realized who it was. Then I acted like I got caught watching porn. Maybe I should purchase some Beiber music and immerse ourselves in some therapy to open our minds. Or I could just buy some Elvis and show her what a pure soul untouched by industry is. DOH! Okay. Babysteps. You get my drift, though, right? Any music that touches you can be good music. Teaching my kid to listen to it with blinders on to certain styles will just kill an opportunity to love something basic and lovely.

Oh Beiber.

Googling Marriage

I spent the better part of a decade completely wound up about money. My husband is in school, living in a lab trying to finally get done with ten years of life in higher education and get on with life. I am a control freak who uses focusing on minutiae to avoid internal issues. It's not a good combination when dealing with finances. Our communication issues didn't help. I would obsess about finding money to get from debt A to debt B and he would turn to worrying about future expenses. I would resent him and block him out.  He would feel left out in the cold.  So, of course, eventually everything blew up in our faces.  And I'm glad. He began to look for solutions for future debt resolution and I quit caring about what happened to money when I needed to work on the multitude of problems I'd been avoiding with the obsessing. We began to communicate. And we came up with a neat trick to cover each other's asses.

Both of us use Google products. We have several blog sites, email addresses, etc. A while back, Jay's lab started using Google Calendar to coordinate their projects. He suggested I add on to it so that we can both see each other's schedules. His work needs, my gigs, what have you. His schedule is in blue, mine is in red.

I began to write down gig payments in detail and keep my book on my calendar. That way when tax season rolled around, I could get a better look at my expenses. There are options to look at the calendar weekly, monthly, etc. so I could look at the whole picture or concentrate on a smaller amount of time. Also, there is a section on the event that you can put notes on. So, if I did a show, I could put down who for, location, payment type, etc. We decided to take this a step further.

I have been the keeper of the bills for the duration of our marriage. If something needed to be paid that he had the most access to, I would tell him the day of to do it. This probably lead to a little resentment because I felt like I was doing all of the thinking, having to remind him of everything sometimes multiple times because it was not in front  of him. And he felt like he couldn't tread into my control freak turf without angst.  Now, I put it on the schedule, marking the day we should pay it, the day it is due and whoever pays it marks it as done.  I can alert him of our money...or lack there of...situation in the bank account and what I've paid on the calendar. Every day we update it and check it.

Lately, I've been keeping my money stress isolated to the calendar. Say the bank account is low in funds? I don't need to bother him at work. I just write what is in there, what has been written against and the end results. He's a smart man, a scientist. He can figure out why pulling out 50 dollars when you only have 40 is a bad idea. And if it falls through? We miss something? Oh well. Two of us did it together. It's not just my problem...not that it ever really was....anymore.

Also, I used to be adamant about protecting my performing schedule and he would have a hard time figuring out his own evening life around it. Part of the problem was that it as often short notice and I had planned my set, my travel, whatever else around the event and part of the problem is he didn't feel allowed to work around it, assumed that it was a done deal without seeking out alternative solutions. We have recently shifted to include his needs more and by marking everything on the calendar, he can see what the conflicts are...and I've dumped the ones that aren't necessary to manage the family better...and if we want to do something at the same time we usually have some time to figure out how to address child care issues, appointment bookings, and  how to coordinate potential conflicts down the road.

At first, I was a little skeptical about this new system flying. Letting control go really kills your inner self martyr.  This whole I do all of the thinking thing that I had going on took a boot to the proverbial crotch. But we both read the calendar daily. We both deal with what's on there. We both note when the deeds that need to be done are finalized. Gigs, doctors appointments, all potential conflict are put in as soon as it is possible so that when something comes up we can communicate and deal with solutions. And we haven't forgotten a thing so far.

Bills aren't just my sole (and soul) problem in  my head anymore. He is getting more freedom to go do things that he likes without a backlash from my schedule conflicts. I have to say, it really has made a difference. Got to love that Google.

Best Friends

The biggest compliment you could give another kid was making them your Best Friend. Some kids liked it so much they had two or three. Sort of like cheating on their spouses openly. Then there would eventually be a fight about who got to be the Best Friend despite the fact that nobody particularly liked each other at that moment. It was fight for property title, like land barons. But, in the end, you usually went back to the Best Best Friend after the ego got sorted out.  Because you may have wanted to adoration of many, but you couldn't sing the lyrics to the themes to the Saturday Morning Cartoon shows the same and confide about the funny smells coming out of your sister with just anyone. There was history there.

As an adult, it is a rare and beautiful thing, a Best Friend. Usually if you are married, it is your spouse because nothing screams "Best Friend!" louder than marriage vows saying that you will honor them regardless of their quirks.  But being this kind of  Best Friend gets complicated sometimes with Partner, Co-Parent and Sex Buddy. Most other types of Best Friends don't live on top of each other and have to pay bills with each other. Marital problems tend to lose the Best Friend part when you need to get the rest of the parts straightened out. You can tell because the spouse tends to treat the other category of Best Friends better than you because you are at that moment no longer a Best Friend. You are The Cause Of Angst.  The Best Friend is in there but its like if your Best Friend joined the little league on the enemy team  and you had to wait till summer to get over to remember that you both had a undying mutual passion for Marvel Comics and all of the good things you have done before together, all the discoveries and marvelous stories you made. So having another type of Best Friend.... one that you are not legally bound to....is a huge blessing.

 I have a non-spousal Best Friend even though I don't get to talk to her as much as we used to and we don't announce the title when we refer to each other. When things were easier and men folks and children folks didn't dilute our schedules, we would talk on the phone every night. I miss that. It was a regular thing that we did because we could. We don't say Best Friends but she is that person whom I can talk to on the phone for an hour and a half at one in the morning after not speaking for two weeks and not even blink. We've been doing it for twenty years. We've been through comedy and births and husbands and, lately, deaths. She harbors me when things get really bad and is the person that I call as soon as I get something great.  And vice versa in return.  I miss seeing her but she's out there. I know when I'm dead, she's the non-relative person who will take it the hardest. We accept who we are are, warts and all. Although sometimes if the warts get too ugly, sometimes we have to back off a little. It is what it is and a history of this many good times is awfully hard to erase.

I wish I could be a kid Best Friend again. The kind that can hang out for hours on a rock in the woods talking about the important things in the world like moss and The Flintstones and why her brother is being such an asshole....almost always puberty....and what exactly is puberty anyway.  The kind of Best Friend without bills and with four hours to kill just goofing around. But I guess a kid Best Friend can't drive a car to go pick up the Best Friend from the bus when they decide to visit. And order chicken fingers whenever they want when they decide to  Best Friend binge eat together while they talk about boys, falling into the blissful Early Adulthood Best Friend pattern developed so long ago. And watch old videos of each other together learning cool things about life. I guess, when its good, its something to appreciate, hold onto while you have it. And be confident that when the Best Friends fade out with whatever circumstance life has handed you together, they come back again like they have again and again, because a Best Friend is a rare and wonderful thing.