Once Upon A Time I Showed My Ass...Most Literally

Fuck my life...today ranked among the top 3 most embarrassing moments of my life.  And at the present I can't tell you the other two...or anything close as a matter of fact.  I went furniture shopping with Mr Man at the Ashley Furniture store.  I sat on almost every couch in the showroom.  After about an hour or so he landed on one that he liked, picked the coffee tables, rug and whatever and went off to do paperwork.  I found a fluffy chaise lounge and did a diving flop...that's the best guess I have of when it happened.  Of course true to form, I can only sit still for a second and got up and wandered about the store some more before coming back and waiting for him to finish up.  When I was headed to the front door...he's behind me and says "Oh my god, the ass of your pants is completely blown out"...now by completely, he actually meant COM-FUCKING-PLETELY...and proceeds to start the dog in cartoon laugh.  Out the front door and he is now fell over at the waist horse laughing my ass...literally.  Not a chance in hell that I'm wearing a shirt long enough to begin to cover it.  Wow.

A- How the fuck did this happen??

B- How in God's name can I be so blissfully unaware??

C- Yes those are my blue undies.

D- Guess in a way this is a good thing 'cause these fuckers were definitely not ass flattering...in hind sight..ha.

I'm sure that that somewhere in the back room they are drinking beer, rewinding and replaying the security tapes and peeing themselves.  I relive the whole scene to Nanner...telling her I can never go back in there and probably in all likelihood need to burn the shirt and hat I was wearing for fear of being recognized in public.  Nanner being the true friend that she is says "Hey if its one of your pink hats I'll take it." 

I think this is something like the Seinfeld episode where George is at the book store and takes the book into the bathroom and they make him buy it and its flagged as a bathroom reader so he can't return it.  Yea, so as soon as they figure out how to find me I'm going to be the proud owner of like 15 or so sofas.  Ya know...I can't make shit like this up.



Bath Mats & Stepping Stones

Sometimes I guess all you need to feel at home is a bath mat.  Warm fuzziness between you and some else's cold floors. Linoleum cock blocker of sort.  I met a neighbor today.  Spot's biped.  Spot is the Boston Terrier equivalent of Earnhardt reincarnated.  Last night we were pretty sure we were being attacked by the fastest raccoon on record, then the "SPOT" screaming commenced and I realized that I was safe and no longer needed lay down my life and heroically tackle a rabid 300 mph raccoon to save my dog. 

Spot's mom was missing at least 4 of the major 8 on the dental front.  She welcomed me to the neighborhood, excused her appearance since she had just removed her teeth and proceeded to warn me about the crackhead around the corner.  Pot...Kettle...Black.  I endured one cop / n epitaph story with a straight face and peaced out.  I asked Roger on the walk home to remind me we needed to get out of the trailer park and to floss before bed.

 At the same time I try to remember to never assume you know some one's story.  You have no idea why or how people manage to end up where they are...and it makes you a raging asshole to assume.  Maybe her story is as interesting or as boring as mine...Maybe so is the crack head's.  Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means ubber empathetic.  I just know that not every book can be judged by it's trailer park squatting cover. 

It's good to know that a fuzzy green bath mat makes you feel grounded.  And it's good to know that every step and every person in your life is there for a reason...some kind of stepping stone to get you to the next place where the fuzzy mat makes it feel like home...at least for a while.

Transition

Life blows.  I can't hear the voices that I rely on for guidance.  I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going.  I am for all intents and purposes homeless and I don't know whether this is my big chance to uproot, run and change my whole life or if it's just all a big fuck up.  Haven't felt this lost in a really really long time and I'm trying hard just to lean on myself, but self is scared. 

This was written a few weeks back when I was obviously obliviously in a panic.  I had just schlepped most of wearable belongings out of Mr Man's house and into my shu.  As is par for my life, I didn't have a pile of friends in it for beer or a well laid plan.  Just me dragging my shit around like Linus' tired old blanky.  I was feeling like the little girl that I am lost in a grown ups body.  I normally filter out this part of my existence.  I seldom get this way and even when I do I don't wear it around on my cuff for others to see.

I've since made some decisions and taken some steps that are making me feel a little more in control.  I've decided where I'm going to live, at least for the next few months, gotten a storage unit for some things that need to be swapped out and have gotten my mom to pack up about eleven hundred pounds of chatkas so I can breathe and move some of my own stuff into her beach house.  Can't claim homeless anymore and I'm no longer driving around with three quarters of my worldly tethers in the back of my car.  I guess we'll call that progress.  I am however completely incapable of giving any form of answer for my "plans".  There honestly aren't any...lots of thoughts still banging around in this rock hard gourd attachment, but nothing I'd label as a plan.  To bogart a line from CAP- "My life has no set trajectory and if I think about it too much it makes me panic"...some days.  And some days after a few rum drinks it almost makes me slightly giddy at the endless possibilities.

So here's to rolling with life...finding reasons to laugh out loud everyday...smiling over the simple things and the wide openness of my world to come.

12 Hanger Therory of Relativity

A lot of thoughts have been banging around in my head and I don't know what to do with them except to purge and put them on paper...so to speak.  On paper I was, at one point, successful.  I had a "real" job and made lots of money and had a few too many houses.  I was married...on paper.  I'm not sure if it was how I was raised or just society's influence that molded my thoughts, but now what I look like on paper is what I use to consider a train wreck.  Strange how I don't feel like a failure.  I actually feel unencumbered and somehow enlightened. 

Mentioned a lot is my ever increasing need of minimalism.  I create a very small footprint on the earth. I am aware that I have big feet and actually make very odd footprints...but that's in sand, talking big picture here.  At the bar this week was a couple that travels all summer to avoid the desert heat where they live in the winter.  The subject of living simple came up.  Pretty sure I quoted some Fight Club (note- not a week goes by that I don't find a conversation to mix a little Fight Club quoting into.)  Anyhow, she introduced me to the 12 Hanger Theory of Relativity.  Actually its 12 hangers and 2 boxes.  You can get all you truly need to live on and in that. I think that this theory would work best if you lived somewhere sans season changes of course. Counted my hangers earlier and guess what...only 12.  Granted I have some shit that needs purging in another closet.  I have a winter clothes mass exodus planned for the coming weeks.  I'm ditching most everything and if I start getting cold then I'm counting it as Divine Intervention that I need to head souther til the weather suits my clothes.  Live small enough and you can fit just about anywhere.

I've been struggling lately.  When I was a kid I was led to believe that we grow up, get married, have kids, buy a house, be responsible.  I only knew a few divorced people and like most when things go south they would crash back in with parents, get their shit back in one sock, then take off again only to wind up hitting a big replay button and doing the same thing different version over again.  Back to how I was raised...I was brought up to think of this as being the wrong course of action I suppose...I'm not sure.  But here I am...37 years old...looking incredibly bad on paper doing pretty much the exact same thing.  I have a very different opinion of my those people now.  The ones that's lives looked messy.  I think I see the world the same way they all did.  Maybe my parent's very structured settled "normal" life is what makes me struggle so with my polar opposite version of life on this spinning ball.  If I had no built in perception of normal I wouldn't feel so unnormal.  I've been trying to think of it as squatting in Daddy's paradise.  Given the chance he would probably trade the world to have my life right now. Today is his birthday...third removed.  He would have been 65.  No idea why it all still shakes my head up so much. Crazy how time goes by.  Crazy how grounded I still am at being ungrounded.  And all I really hope is that he wouldn't see me as a loser.  Tell me I don't need more shit to worry about.     

Back in the Faraway Married Land

The other night I had a married land flash back, it occurred when I proactively set up my coffee for the next morning. I was draggin' ass like a poodle with worms and was fully aware of my next morning need for caffeine to make it to Bob. And it happened, I Hot Tub Time Machine transported back to another lifetime. Every night in my semi buzzed stupor I would load the coffee pot, set out 2 upside down cups balancing the little required sweeteners and spoon on the bottoms. Frying pan on the stove with spatula, spray olive oil, plate with folded paper towel beside. Plates and knives and forks at the bar stools. A cereal bowl with either instant oatmeal or grits based on the previous day's consumption. This was everyday. I didn't do it because I was required, I did it just to keep myself sane. Although seeing it in print doesn't seem so much so now. Pancake Saturdays and omelet Sundays.


I would come home from work and the gym and throw the ball for Roger. Drag my little hose across the yard to the flowers and pick weeds and dead blooms and water and throw and drink. And drink. Then I would light the grill and domesticate further. A phone call would eventually come requesting bath water for the off spring and I would put food on plates and plates on the bar. I trimmed twisty trees to be twisty. I made mosaic flower pots. I picked up sticks in the wheel barrow from the gazillion shedding fucking trees, then I'd mow. And drink.

I was very content. Content because I'm always content when I spend time alone. Honestly it was better than when they were around. But I was always waiting for Someday. Someday when I could move to the beach and not have to deal with baby moma drama and a mouthy 11 year old. When I didn't have to fold paper towels just so or turn cans in the pantry a certain way to feel in control of my life.

One day it just became too much, I quit running the bath water and I quit plating the food. I quit eating the omelets. I realized I had gotten completely and totally lost...nothing of my life was Me. I tried to remember who I was before I fell into this pseudo stepford existence. It was handled badly to say the least, it's hard when you jerk the proverbial domesticated rug out from under someone, I may as well have spun the world off its axis.

I cried when I picked Roger's toys up from the yard when we moved out. Instead of admitting it was a stepping stone we rode it so far into the ground that it's taken me 3 years to remember any of the good. Not a very adult way of going about things I'm sure.

All of this because I put coffee in the maker the night before.

p.s. I still will not touch omelets.

Bad Beagles...Bad Sniff

Roger wanted to do a guest blog, but between the oppossing thumb issue and all of his words starting with R's we thought it best that I just do a recap for him.  My very attractive boy bird dog with the feather boa plume of a tail got rolled by two vacationing hater beagles.  Yes, beagles...of all dogs to get your ass kicked by...beagles.  Of course my maternal instincts kicked in and I immediately wanted to break out all trailer park in the trailer park and go kick some Ohio beagle ass but fortunately I lost my steam before day light.  Which is much the way with me...note to self there folks if you ever make me batshit crazy livid (an almost impossilbe feat minus rolling my dog) just get away from me and in almost no time it will loose it's legs (no need in worrying if I will chainsaw the pilons of your waterfront house Mr X).  So outside of feeling bad because I raised a gay dog and that he took on my passive (aggressive) personality there are no scars to show.  They didn't really hurt him...just pushed him around on the playground a little.  I've been there, trust me, and I lived through it too.  Doubt he'll be a big tail wagger around the little O mouth barkers anytime soon though.

In other news from the hood, my keen dog senses dog completly missed 2 deer that were in the field on his dog walk yesterday.  They were still barely bambi spotted but tall and leggy and about 40 feet away from us.  In his defense he's never been much of a hunter/gather type and he was tied up with handling his dog business so to speak.  Poo...spin...sniff.  They just stood and watched the spinning pooing dog...probably saving their deer jokes for after he walked away.  Then one of the deer made dookey of his own.  How many of you have seen a deer poo before...exactly...I rest my case of how cool I am.  I can not speak for the oblivious dog.

I have a little list of blogs that I read, some a lot more than others, but none the less they are all saved in my favorites folder.  That is, until today.  I even purge my favorites.  One went because she got all goddy on me...meh.  And two more others went because they went from witty clever writers to doing nothing but posting baby pics.  I get the idea of a journal that one day your kids will be able to look back at and understand where they came from...I honestly wish I had one...but damnit ya'll you don't have to get lost.  Delete...Peace out...gotta go.

And finally...bad sniff.  Last night after a particularly grueling almost 11 hour day in the trenches, I was standing in the kitchen at 11:30 having my delightful chef prepared meal of Ramen noodles, when I make an out loud statement that even I didn't see coming "Fuck...I stink".  And then thought to myself...I don't even care.  Yep, that's what it's come to.

Another One From the Archives

This one was written in apparently 1994, judging from the age it says I am. Back before I dated my thoughts or let anyone else see them.  From somewhere late year '93 through somewhere in '97 I had quite the run...I would consider it among the best times of my life.  I escaped and traveled and lived.  Best of all I turned into myself with no apologies.

1994
Tomorrow...What's it going to be?  Everybody I know is so far away from who they were and where they were when they were 21.  It makes me think that some how my life's going to be so much shorter than any of theirs.  Where will I be in 15 years?  Will I even BE at all?  The hell with 15 years, where will I be in 2.  Two years ago I would have never believed my life now.  Isn't that weird, it's nothing like I even dreamed.  So, does that mean that what I imagine maybe in 2 years isn't even close?

The adventure of life.  I guess that's it.  I don't guess you're supposed to know.  I don't think it's even planned yet.  It could be, everybody could have their life's story, kind of like our very own novel, and its already written.  That would be kinda cool, you know if you could show it off or something, instead of living it and being 90 years old trying to tell your story.  Either  you don't remember it or nobody believes you because they think you're too damn old to know what you're talking about.  No body's really interested in your "story".  Only a very few people will ever really care about your life.  Minus your parents, you're lucky if one or two your whole life, or that's what I think anyways.  I guess it shows how we're really alone through life.  Having someone who cares is neat, but it's not nearly as guaranteed as having yourself.

I'm sure I didn't think that more than a decade and a half later I would still be that raging little case of myself, that I would be thinking almost the same thoughts every day or that my life would so closely mirror what it was back then right down to the amount of water that I find myself playing in and the amount of Ramen noodles consumed every week. Funny how little I've chosen to grow up.