You’re a blockhead Bebe Brown! November 20, 2009

Please excuse my lack of writing recently. I am blocked worse than a constipated baby. I have all of these little notes and ideas but nothing yet! It’s not that I dont want to write, I do. But I am afraid if I find myself sitting in front of the monitor banging my forehead on the keyboard, I am going to think of it too much as work and then abandon it altogether. I love doing this too much to do that.

I will report that I made cupcake cones for my son’s 2nd birthday and they didn’t spill over, taste like ass, or burn. I felt rather bona-fide because I can’t bake and I was certain that my poor boy would live a life of ghetto hillbilly homemade birthday cakes that I wouldn’t take out of the pan because I knew it would stick to the bottom. He would send a picture into cake wreck because even at 5 he would know that I colossally jacked his shit up. But they were great. I am bona fide.

I am making a list of groceries for my Thanksgiving dinner. I will have plenty to write about after that.

Please keep checking back. I promise once I clear out this clutter, I will get back to business.

Kung Fu Kinda Night November 14, 2009

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

…Sitting at my computer, feeling a wee lost and lonely, the house quiet while my little family sleeps earlier than usual and I’m up buzzed from a beer and redecorating out of boredom…Kung Fu Comes Through.

“Juicy” is not a description that should be on my butt November 9, 2009

One of my favorite places for inspiration on the subject of being 1.) a mother and 2.) a real live human being with real emotions is Momversation.com.   So a post I had been thinking about came to the surface tonight, while I drank my beer and ate my burger and watched Are Little Girls Clothes Way Too Sexy? at Momversation.com.

One of my friends completely innocently included a bib in a gift at my baby shower that said “Hottie” on it.  It was in a large pack of other bibs, so I’m not saying she was making some statement or is behind this sentiment, but man that thing stuck in my craw.

I thought I threw it out, my first battle in the war on sexism for my daughter, but there it was again in the pile of things as I packed to move last month.  “HOTTIE” written in purple across a white bib.  Really?  A person that needs such a bib is under the age of one and we already assigning this cringe-worthy slang word to them?  I mean, sure she’s cute but wait…why are we already talking about her physical beauty!?  She still shits her pants!

Sure, I may be a little too indignant about this, but hell…I work all day and come home and run all night.  Allow me my little wars.

So as I watched this episode, it hit me: Oh Holy Moses on Mt. Sinai, I’m going to have to deal with the length of my daughter’s skirts from grades 5-12.  I’m going to have to be the fuddy duddy that tells her to respect herself and not make the entire 10th grade Math class her gynecologist.

How do you teach girls to respect themselves?  To not be on display for boys or other girls?

I assume I teach her that by the actions of myself.  Hell, that shouldn’t be a problem then because hopefully she will look to her aunt for fashion tips, as lately my wardrobe has included v-neck t-shirts in all colors and one pair of men’s jeans from The Gap.  Then again, maybe by the time we’re having these arguments in front of her closet I will have had more than 10 minutes to shower once a week, so hell, maybe I’ll have been able to throw on a short skirt too. Providing I will have resumed shaving my legs in 2021.

For now I’m just going to use that bib when she eats really awful stain-inducing foods like peas and carrots and the dog food (have I mentioned we reached, The Crawling?).  Then I’m going to wipe her ass with it, hop in my car, cruise the mall and leave it in the dressing room at Forever Slutty-One.

Hurrah!

-Lulu

It’s a girl! October 23, 2009

I will keep this short, sweet and to the point by stealing the words of Mr. Graham Nash. But first, a word from me.

I am gleefully 35 years old and have lived a very complex life but came out relatively unscathed. I am who I am, good or bad, because of it. When I hate my life, I still love it. The best thing about time is the ability to change your mind and soul when it needs changing. Mine has changed.

For the first time in my life, I now fully feel the whole presence of both of my biological parents. They are both brilliant people who have done brilliant things, and for two 17 year old kids they managed to breed a decent human being. They never married and never had a relationship in my lifetime that I am conscious of and both became sidetracked by many things down the line of my life. I was lost in the shuffle for a while. But now I have them both and I am a fulfilled and happy person for it. I am me but I am also them and I am proud.

So without further ado…

Teach Your Children
by Graham Nash

You, who are on the road
Must have a code
That you can live by.
And so, become yourself
Because the past
Is just a goodbye.

Teach, your children well
Their father’s hell
Did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s
The one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would die
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

And you (Can you hear and)
Of tender years (Do you care and)
Can’t know the fears (Can you see we)
That your elders grew by (Must be free to)
And so please help (Teach your children)
Them with your youth (You believe and)
They seek the truth (Make a world that)
Before they can die (We can live in)

Teach your parents well
Their children’s hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s
The one you’ll know by.

Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

Graham Nash & Bebe

This Is Where I Leave You October 23, 2009

Taking Bebe’s advice, I recently picked up “This Is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper.  Wouldn’t you know she’d get me all hooked on fiction again after a long snobby stream of solely non-fiction.  That Bebe, when she’s not being an asshole, she’s totally Buddha incarnate.  Do what she says people, trust this lady.

I read it quick, with one day left on my library rental.  Long enough to end up standing at the copier getting sunburns from holding the book open-faced on the copier, trying to steal all of the little snippets that were too long to rewrite by hand and too good to let go without keeping for a revisit.  I have pages and pages and notes and notes where this book made me look up and go “well god damn.”

A quick aside: I have been indulging in a book club with a coworker for the past couple of years and it’s led to a string of fascinating, connecting, synchronous subjects that have completely broadened my understanding of the way we work as people.  That being said, it’s hard as hell to go back to any old fiction. Not just because I’m hooked on facts lately, but I have a precious half-hour a day to actually read anything for leisure.  So if it’s fiction, I hope like hell to get something from it.

But again, when Bebe suggests, I listen.  Plus, bonus, my library had a copy and the cute, funky, arty library worker raved about the author too.  I tend to follow people’s advice when I covet their jewelery or footwear.  Yes, I am that shallow.

Back to the book…one passage that got me thinking about my recent quest to figure out my family vs. shaping my new family, was the following:

“We deflect emotions with logistics.  Instead of talking about our father’s death, we figure out how to get to the airport.  It’s what we do.  Our parents can continue to screw us up even after they die, and in this way, they’ve never really gone. My siblings and I will always struggle trying to confront an honest emotion.  We’ll succeed, to varying degrees, with outsiders, but fail consistently, sometimes spectacularly, with each other.”

My god did that hit home.

My mother, bless her heart, and her heart is HUGE, doesn’t like to get real deep.  She doesn’t like uncomfortable situations, talking out problems and feelings, and she’s spectacularly good at “keeping the peace.”  She’s the typical oldest sibling and very very clearly one of the most responsible ones in the family.  So we don’t get into super emotional talks or talk about our feelings.  We fix things, immediately, and move on.

My bio-father, well…let’s just say I love him for who he is, but I had to remind him that he should be a lot more excited outwardly about certain big events in my life, like having his grandchild, because the stone wall routine wasn’t going to work out for our relationship.  He obliged in his way, but yeaaaaa.

Me?  Well I have a blog for Krishna’s sake.  Pretty sure I don’t mind, and indulge in, hashing shit out.  I hash out shit so much it’s hash browns.  For my daughter, I’d love somewhere in between.

Someone once told me that that famous saying from Socrates, “The unexamined life is a life not worth living.”  I take this to mean that for your life to be worthwhile you should sit down and look at where you’ve been, where you are going, and what you want it to be.  I have no interest in waking up 65 years old with no idea how I got there.  No flat surface life here, thanks.

I want more than one kid, so I suppose this book excerpt hit me in that way too.  Because I have a sister and besides a few friends, she is definitely someone I can hash shit out with.  I’d love that for my baby too.

I would love for my munchkin to feel, feel completely, feel free and loudly and openly, and have siblings to share this with, let alone her parents.  But at the same time, I hope she keeps a little of that part where you can also figure out how to get the airport quickly too.

Balance, right?

So thank you, Jonathan.  You just articulated why I’m really good with details, really good at coordinating people/food/decorations, really good at my job, but really spectacularly awkward talking with people at funerals and in emergency rooms and to my family.  Especially my family.

-Lulu

The Great Zamboni Epiphany October 21, 2009

I had this utterly cruel and heartbreaking epiphany about myself while riding home on the train this week. I had been doing my 365 experiment of journaling something every day and there it was in black and white. 

I think that there may some moments in life where I find myself not liking my son. My miracle son with fantastic dimples and lovely sleeping habits. My son that I dreamed about day in and day out over the course of quite possibly my whole life. My 2-year-old chunk of heaven on earth.

When I realized that might possibly be the case I of course immediately felt my breath being vaporized from my body and my eyes blowing out my ass. How much of a fuckface could I possibly be? But then calmer heads prevailed and I got to questioning myself before I went down the shame spiral.

I have documented our struggle with his speech delays. We have progressed a bit. He knows how to say all gone. Everything is all gone!! He tries to say baba, yuk, and what we think might be hello. But everything else is a long drawn out powerful whine. Or small grunts. I don’t understand anything that comes out of his mouth. I try to work on speech stuff with him at night and on weekends. But he doesn’t want to do homework on weekends.

We try to do social things with him and I have to be honest. He is kind of solitary and weird. We went to the baby pool nearby and all he did was stand in the corner playing with the snap buckles in his stroller. We take him to the park, and all he does is play with the snap buckles in his stroller. It’s profoundly discouraging because I take it so personally. He doesn’t want to play with me. I try to work double time on weekends with him. But he just wants to chill. He works hard all week.

I took him to his first story time, and all of the kids sat in their mom’s laps and enjoyed the show. Mine walked away from me and hung around the doorway. We had to sing the kid’s names as a welcoming activity and when it was our turn, the whole room had to look behind them to see him. And there he was, standing there alone. I just thought it would be a perfect time for him to start picking his nose.  

But the doorway thing is all the rage with him.  At his therapist’s advice, we took away his buckles and tried to keep him busy doing other things. He needs his senses to be very highly stimulated. In the absence of the buckles he turned towards…doorways. We go to a party and he finds the doorway and parks there all night. Opening and closing. Standing and staring. In and out. Reaching and pulling. Of course, the busier the doorway is, the more appealing it is.

This happened at a family party for the first time and has not been undone yet. It’s also the first time I became outwardly frustrated with him. In front of kin, no less. Mind you, they sent us as kids for packs of cigarettes from the corner store and let us jump around the station wagon all willy nilly like. Yet somehow every one of them found time in between America’s Funniest Home Videos and Facebooking all day to earn their degree in child development. Me becoming annoyed for my boy “just being him” was not looked upon in a supportive light. All I wanted for him was to enjoy the other children and get a lot of fresh air. Not stand in a doorway and have a meltdown when someone tried to move him. I just wanted him to have some “normal” fun.

Fast forward to a children’s Halloween party. It’s a kid’s party to beat all. Treats everywhere. A big jumpy castle. Crafts galore. I thought we made a breakthrough when he played in the jumpy with another girl his age.  But he inevitably ends up in the doorway. This time I try to stay as positive as possible and carry him to other fun places at the party. It takes about 10 tries, but it works. He ends up playing nicely with another little boy in the hostess’ daughters bright pink kitchen. Both boys were dressed as football players, and they were the only ones playing in the kitchen. The dad’s were mortified but we thought it was cute. He wasn’t in a doorway.

I was relieved.

He gets evaluated every 6 months and shows no signs of autism. He just has quirks. And just as quickly as my last epiphany came, so did another.  I am holding him to a higher standard because I miss him so god-damned much during the week that I expect him to be on when we are together. I am forgetting that he isn’t a pod. He is a person. He is his own little dude. He isn’t a TV sitcom baby, and shame on me for even thinking he would be. He loves story time at school. He loves speech exercises with his therapist. I have decided that he doesn’t expect his teacher or his therapist to be his mother any more than he expects me to be his teacher or speech therapist.

When he is sick, he wants me. When he is hungry, well, he will steal food from anyone. But he wants me. And besides, it’s incredibly naive and selfish to even think for one second that it’s your child’s job to make you happy. It isn’t. Parenting is a true kick in the balls to a bitch’s ego. So I could, should and will stop feeling sorry for myself and accept the fact that my kid is just being him. I mean, I will still parent him and try to figure him out.  I will get to know him and have faith that he won’t end up wearing a clown suit in a few years running down people in a Zamboni. 

I will also remember that I used to walk on the sides of my feet because I hated the feeling of grass, carpeting and cloth while I walked. I would run out of the bathroom faster than the toilet could flush because I thought that the gurgling noise it made would eat me. I also was convinced that Gene Simmons would be lowered with a rope from the KISS Copter and kidnap me while I pee’d. In all of my old home movies, everyone is running around having fun and I am standing silently along  just mouthing the word “hi” with a slight wave. Damn, I was a weirdo too.

My son very well might be absolutely brilliant. Or he might be a criminal. I just don’t know. But at the very least, he knows how to work a doorway and buckle a seat belt. And when one needs a clean getaway, these talents will come in handy.

Bebe

Intelligent observation or rant? Maybe both. October 21, 2009

Let us all discuss the delicate and intricate dichotomy that is the working mother and stay at home dad. My husband is going to start school in January but until then, he is a stay at home dad, sort of. He drops the boy off at school in the morning, does their laundry, picks him up from school and makes their dinner. He does the bills and makes the appointments our son’s  physical and speech therapy.

My end of the bargain? I work 12 hours a day for about 150 people, and then I come home and walk through the door and become mom. I clean up dinner, do the dishes, give the baths, make the bottles, wash the bottles, and put the boy to bed. I hand over the paycheck, work overtime, and get nagged constantly about leaving my socks on the floor of every room in the house. On the weekends, except for the luxury of sleeping in until 8:30 (my fault, I am not a hard core sleeper) on Saturdays, I am in charge of.it.all.

My husband has done far more than I ever expected possible. I thank him every second of the day, leave him small notes of appreciation, shoo him out of the house for weekend camping with friends. I try to cook him his favorite meals on weekends even when it means eating the same old same old every single weekend. And after all of that, I still can’t shake the feeling that he still thinks deep down that he is simply doing me a favor, and one day, I will blossom into the super woman housewife and mother he believes I can be. He is throwing me a bone. This “woman’s work” is just temporary.

I believe this to be true because he reminds me all the live long day about what he has done that day. The tone in his voice says “I did the boy’s laundry today. You-0 points! Me: 100 points. DING DING DING!!! REWARD ME! THANK ME!”

I myself am not allowed to be tired. Or articulate that I am tired, for that only awakens the competitor in the husband.  Me: “I had a hard day today at work, I am exhausted” Him: “Hmph. At least you didn’t have to listen to the cat meow today and wipe apple juice off the floor.” Me: “I am starving!” Him: “Yeah right. The boy kept trying to play with the pots and pans while I microwaved his mac and cheese today”

Okay, hands down, that dude wins. What the hell could I be thinking?? I throw in the towel. I see a powerful episode of Oprah in his future.

I don’t really know what he was expecting when we decided to stop courtin’ and set up a homestead. I mean, I never set a precedent of being a fantastic housekeeper and wife. And having not been a working mother my whole life, I could only assume I would do a great job of it but the room for error was huge. I mean, you all know I am an unorganized mess of a human being, correct?

Aside from the uncontrollable need for a shit load of conversation and a slight mean streak when pushed too far, and I mean really far, as I have an uncanny jackass tolerance level much to the awe of my girlfriends, he has had it really easy with me. I have never depended on him for anything financially. I have always contributed to the household pretty equally.

I do not under any circumstances expect anything in return for taking care of my family. If I had to work 10 jobs and also be earth mother extraordinaire, I would gladly step up to the plate. I would fail miserably but damn, I would try. I look at my husband’s position in our family with a great deal of appreciation, empathy and sympathy. I can’t imagine how he must feel about starting his life over, going to school, and having his wife be his husband.

I know how to bring home the bacon, I know how to fry it up in a pan. But hell, I want a BLT too! I resist the urge to smack him in the head with that bacon. I don’t do it because bacon is expensive and delicious. I don’t do it because I love and appreciate what he does. And I know for a fact I am not alone in this because it’s a common thread amongst many people I know. Now, if you happen to be a stay at home dad who finds this blog and feels the need to defend yourself, you don’t have to. I know enough in my life to know that not all men are created equal. Well done, governor. Well done.

I just wish that hard working moms weren’t expected to do everything because they have to and it’s expected, while dads do everything they do and expect us to play the theme song to Chariots of Fire and throw a ticker tape parade in their honor.

I want a healthy, happy family. I want to take good care of my family and work as hard as I can for them. But I also want a delicious and expensive BLT.

Bebe

St. Agnes of Forgiveness October 13, 2009

Undergoing my own little life experiment in the past two weeks.  Basically, in as few words as possible, I’m apologizing when I’m irritated with someone.  I say the words “I’m sorry.”  Not always, mind you.  And by that I mean sometimes I have said “I’m sorry” without the experiment backing it up and sometimes I’m truly irritated and I’ve said “go fuck yourself” instead.  However, I’m noticing that when I have followed the experiment to the letter of the law a very strange by-product has come to light.

Miss Karma has my back.

Usually this is related to people at work.  I love my job, I do.  Don’t worry, I’m not about to go the Dooce.com route about talking about coworkers, she taught me well.  I love most of the people I work with.  However, like any establishment, there are always a few people you just don’t mix with.  Either personality, background, basic grooming…something doesn’t match up with you and they get under your skin.  In two separate instances when I was clearly right, but they were never going to see my side, I apologized.  I apologized for the misunderstanding.  I apologized and said I understood their point of view.  I apologized and told them how good of a job I thought they were doing and thanked them for their help.  I meant every word but I didn’t make it about me, I surrendered.

In no less than 10 minutes every single time I’d get some compliment or praise from someone else in return, not related to the incident I was involved in, but it would always be unexpected.  I’d find a $20 in my pocket or I’d find out some task I had completed and forgotten about or thought I had messed up had a great benefit to someone else.  Something would always every.single.time come back to me in a positive light.  Not ever related to the irritation, but always something good.

So I started thinking about why this is?

Please note, I’m not a person that all of the sudden lets everyone walk all over me.  This is not what this is about at all.  Who I am is a person that is very reactive.  I react.  Loudly and sometimes violently, at least with my words, and it’s a part of me that I do not enjoy.  What I do love about me is that I’m opinionated, I will voice it, I care about people passionately and sometimes that comes out loudly.  The part I’m working on is the venom part.  The quick fire jabs.  The need for validation.

In my effort to get rid of The Bend, I’ve adopted the mantra that “you do not need to convince someone why you feel the way you do.”  I do not spend energy on this any longer, so maybe I’m finding that all of that extra time and energy is being put to better use?  To notice the good and stop dwelling on the things I can’t control?

If you are still with me and haven’t stopped reading because Jesus Horatio Christ this is a bit self-indulgent…hear me out.  I wonder what would happen if we stopped trying to jump up and down in the crowd trying to get noticed, vying for our space in the world, if we could just be comfortable in our skin and the way our mind works…I wonder if we could all take that next great evolutionary step the Mayans alluded too.  We have until 2012 people.

To hold ourselves accountable, Bebe & I have created a peace treaty.  We signed it, put it in our special font and allude to it whenever we feel the urge to completely freak the fuck out over the littlest things.  This apologizing regime has stemmed from that in so many ways.  The peace we want is peace for us.

The more I go with this experiment, the more I’m seeing that the act of stopping before I put fingers to keyboard or tongue to venom, the very act of waiting 5 minutes and then giving the other party a bone, it’s creating this calm in me.

My child is about to crawl.  Any second.  She currently rotates around in 360’s on our wood floors like a lazy susan, pulling at any wires in her path or scooting towards certain death by the bookshelf. I know full well what this next developmental step will lead too, the part of parenting I have not in any way made a decision on how to execute: discipline.

Soon enough I’m going to have to figure out if telling her “no” 100 times a day is negating the very word…if instead I need to do the bait and switch method of distraction…if asking her nicely to “please stop pulling the TV down off the table” in that sing-song pleading voice is going to make me that mom in the store that everyone else just wants to encourage to please just spank your screaming brat of a child…if no matter what type of method I choose to set boundaries for my kid, there is still a good chance someone else won’t agree or one day she will climb a bell tower and take out student nurses with a shotgun anyways.

Maybe, just maybe, this calm, this ability to stop and apologize, calm down or at least not take things personal will help in this way.  Perhaps I’m gearing up for all of the calm I’m going to need in the next year when my precious little snowflake needs me to be level headed the most?

Bebe likes to pray to St. Agnes, protector of women, over these matters.  I have no idea if she really ever existed but we like the name and when we use our fake Brooklyn accent, it sounds awesome.  Because I view religion as the crutch for the justification of acts, I use St. Agnes as a sounding board for same.

So here goes.

St. Agnes, you great big sexy beast of a woman up there in Neverland, please give me the strength to keep up this experiment.  Give me the faith in myself that I can create calm in my life.  Please allow me to use this calm towards my kid who is about to be able to destroy everything in her path.

By the way, if you have any idea how I’m supposed to tell this adorable little kid of mine not to draw on the walls of our living room one day when quite frankly I’m proud of her for creating art or how I’m suppose to explain to her that kicking the knees of some bully jerk child in preschool is not acceptable even though I feel like taking it up a notch and pushing her into a mud puddle myself…

…that would be fucking sweet too.

Hilarious & Inappropriate October 12, 2009

I have writers block, so let’s get that out of the way now. So, what I am going to do is tell you briefly all that I encountered at a family party this weekend. Unabridged, and as I saw it. I probably won’t need to get too descriptive because this stuff kind of writes itself. Until I can clear my mind and get back to writing, I give you….

My great aunt who is named after a really old ethnic stereotype nickname is probably around early 80’s. She is the salt of the earth, beautiful to look at, still has a phenomenal body and a killer head of hair that she doesn’t dye. She is very crunchy and earthy and the matriarch of our family. She is hilarious, and has a mouth that stops at nothing. In the course of a few hours I heard her telling someone she just met about having her first son in a house in New Mexico. Later, she went to every person in the house individually, some of whom she had just met, to hug them, kiss them, and stare at them, so that she could “absorb them”. Her husband of 60 years introduced himself to her and I told her to go absorb him. They hugged for like 10 minutes. They are not of this world. I am convinced. They are brilliant.  I found out after all of the absorbing was over that sometime prior all of the old kin had snuck down to their RV and shared a fattie. Yes, doobage. And I found this out because my dear friend was playing bean bags outdoors and saw them walk away and suddenly he became overcome with the smells of mother earth’s greatest gift and Polygrip. There was also a rumor regarding tequila as well, but I was busy doing other things so I was unable to substantiate said rumor. And frankly, I am saddened.

After she absorbed people, she then told my ultra conservative cousin, rather loudly, that he was really fucked up. From what I could gather, it was because he didn’t like wheat bread. She told him that farting was natural. She then told him that fucking was natural. And her final opinion was that white bread was not, in fact, natural. She then pretended to smack down her old ass sister in law for supposedly stealing her wine. Sound effects and all.

My mom, bless her heart, got into the “marlow” a bit early in the day. And by “marlow” she means the merlot. And by merlot, I am quite sure she meant Franzia. And by got into it early, it means she probably had two glasses and that was it. She was a goner. She told everyone I had made macaroni & cheese with and-dooly saahsage. She meant I made macaroni & cheese with andouille sausage. She shared that she didn’t like hoomus. But when someone said it wasn’t hoomus, it was hummus, she perked up and exclaimed her love for hummus. The last I saw her, she was trying to tackle her cousin’s wife, a strict vegetarian, with a piece of pork. Did I mention this was a pig roast? Outdoors? In the cold? Paints a picture, doesn’t it?

My second cousin used every mug and cup in the house to make boiled peppermint schnapps with some cocoa in it. Everywhere I turned there were platters set out with massive amounts of pork sitting on it. I felt like I was in Caligula 2, Farm Drunks Boogaloo. I don’t fully understand how 50 people who were born and raised on the south side of Chicago ended up on a farm in the middle of nowhere making jokes about pork and drinking marlow, but they did.

This was just over a couple of hours, this convoluted mish-mash of observation on my part. I am sure there was so much more I missed. These people don’t even try to be anything else but who they are. They all have fantastic smiles and incredible laugh lines, yet their faces aren’t really too wrinkled. Their eyes twinkle, even during the down times. They are exceptionally inappropriate almost all of the time with no effort whatsoever.

My great grandmother and her son, my grandfather both died a couple of years ago. My grandpa was my best friend. He also picked up ladies when we went out together, much to the chagrin of my grandmother, but still. He was my main man. He was hilarious and inappropriate almost all of the time. His mother rode roller coasters until she couldn’t anymore, and did a shot of tequila every chance she got at a family party. She loved to gamble. She was hilarious and inappropriate all of the time. I miss them. But I know they were watching the family, joining in on the fun. How do I know? Because my mom has their ashes mixed together in a pill bottle (appropriately enough) on top of the entertainment center with an epitaph that reads Gram and Dad. Just hangen. She of course means to say just hangin’. But we all know what she means.

Welcome to my planet.

 -Bebe

Toonage October 7, 2009

Music is my religion, it is my philosophy of life, my therapy, my escape, my energy, and well, much more. As soon as that needle hits the record, I feel warm and fuzzy – like I just had a glass of wine or felt the sun on the first day of summer. The other day, I put on our wedding song and in that one moment, it all came flying back and I looked at him and just felt love. I was  holding my little  tootsie pop, and I think she felt it too. No words needed to be said, just a vibe sent from my heart to hers. I don’t remember much in terms of being a  baby, but I do remember the lyrics to Catch A Falling Star, A Lover’s Concerto, and Once Upon a Time, for no other reason that I think my momma passed along the same vibe. And for all I fear I do wrong, this is the one thing I know I do right, without having to try, think, or fake it. I think my love of music is stamped on my daughter’s soul and she will carry that with her forever. She will hold with her, securely, the feelings I have for her, for my husband, for life and know they’re real. 

I will hold it forever too. Each time we dance, I am taken to a place where we are wrapped up in silk above cobble stone streets, muted light touching our noses and soft petals falling from the sky with the smell of fresh and dewy, glowing and glowing and ease…I can lay in it,  at anytime of the day, when I hear a song. Okay, now I’m gushing, with love, I am…and I’m going to say it, cheesy, cheesy, cheesy me, queen of the sap, but life is beautiful and I love it. I LOVE IT. So, world, if you see me passing, sing a song, you’ll get a smile, maybe even a hug.

Kisses and Bounce,

Flora