three women

In my young and not so carefree divorced days I worked with three women who were friends of like mind.  It was comforting to know that whatever happened in my messy life I could talk about it and receive full attention and sympathy from these muses.

If I was having a problem with a man, which was more times than not,  Wendy would say to me, "Dawn, men are like exotic creatures."  She was in her 30's and she had an affair with a married man whom she met during her college years  while slicing bacon at the meat plant.  He had eight children and Wendy was seriously Catholic and attended prayer sessions during the week as well as Sunday Mass but she allowed herself this one temptation.  He moved to Arizona with his asthmatic wife who had the courtesy to die soon after that and the next day he was on a flight back home to propose.  Wendy uses the word "soul mate" a lot and goes on hunting trips with her spouse despite being a very cerebral and PETA-supporting person.  "You need to treat men in a special manner allowing for their eccentricities and odd behaviors.  They're not like us," she continued.

"They're just like us," said Mary, a gentle woman with a crackling, dry wit who read books about the philosophy behind Grimm's fairy tales.  She was married to a sad alcoholic whom she eventually dumped and then married a fellow with the same tendency, he just hid the booze bottles in better places.  "Men have feelings, too, and they are like little children who need to be pampered and loved.  He's probably just scared, Dawn, and doesn't know how to talk about it."

Susan was a sassy divorcee who wore tight black leather skirts and high-heeled pumps and lived with a manager of a huge sprawling John Deere plant.  He tinkered on antique cars and I never was at the house when Don was there.  He was egotistical and skinny and thought about women in a superficial bored way and after many years he kicked Susan out of his ski lodge home because he had met a younger woman and now he wanted a child.  He married that little blond although the child never appeared and I see them at Appleby's from time to time.  I give him scalding looks remembering how scared and shocked my Susan was, traits not native to that brave girl and she ate nothing but toast and mashed potatoes for weeks. Anyway,  I would repeat my current guy complaint and Susan would descend with wings flapping and fire spewing from her mouth.  "Why that dirty no-good  ************!    I wouldn't put up with that ******* *******  for another night.  Throw his ********  stuff out the window and get on with your life.  Who does he ******* think he is?

Yep, Susan was the preferred confidante, that one was easy. 

"there is a house in New Orleans . . ."

The Rock n' Roll Rewind festival is coming and it features bands from my teen days that performed  at  dances and wedding receptions a thousand years ago.  They belted out "House of the Rising Sun" and "My Girl" at the end of every soiree while I sat on the sidelines, a shrinking violet in an orange polka-dot dress sewn by my mother and a bubble hairdo straight out of To Sir With Love, that's right, just like Lulu.

 But some nights were . . . well, magic.  A guy in tight white jeans, black turtleneck, short hair-cut with long sideburns and black-framed (before Johnny Depp made them famous) glasses would tower above me and put out his sweaty hand and I would be rescued from my anonymous misery.

By the end of the night I had decided what color my bridesmaids would be wearing and the guy hadn't even asked me out.  Girls back then needed to hear more stories that did not end happily after.  We needed to know that many times things did not work out when a man was involved.

I don't plan on attending the musical reunion. 

The fellows who will perform are old, bald, fat, stuck on themselves and wearing clothes that belong in retro shops or on the backs of really hip young New Yorkers.  There will be a couple of old boyfriends milling around I don't want to see.  One good thing is that the bands are not allowed to play original songs, and you know they all have that little stand with someone's old lady in a tie-dye skirt selling CDs and after five or six beers you convince yourself that you really want to hear Steve and his Sitar in your home anytime you want.  I have a special place in my CD catalog books for these types of misbought CDs.  I know Ed, misbought, not a word.

somebody shoot me now

Tomorrow is the second day of the county fair and I will be there with four children, somebody shoot me now. 

County fairs in the heartland have been elevated to the status of a Broadway blockbuster and they boast rows of hosed-down livestock, sweet-sour homemade lemonade and cows sculpted out of butter and the public slurps it up.  This is the land of deep-fried twinkies and swarthy carnies who swindle innocents out of allowance money and  make them think they are inadequate  because they can't pick up a rubber fish with a cheap fishing pole.  My grand kids are in honors classes, jeesh, where's the logic, why expose them to this?

Whitey is a friend of my husband's from grade school days and he has a piping hot temper probably from getting pulverized by an older brother on a regular basis. He also volunteered for three tours in Viet Nam which definitely is a red flag of some sort and  I remember his 50th birthday party and watching that older brother smash cake into his face forcing him against the wall breaking two picture frames.  Whitey beat up a carnie after he discovered the milk bottle was glued to its stand and unable to get knocked over by his baseball.  I like that story.

It is fun to watch a small girl's eyes grow immense at the top of the Ferris wheel and nine-year old boys screech and jump out of their seats when the tiger plunges their way. The county fair does have some merit.

desperately democratic

Back in Michigan and I'm greasing up grand babies with sunscreen because we're headed to the pool.  I eat more vegetables when I visit my son Jim  than I do when my oldest, Jason, shows up at my door with his highly selective vegan diet. Jim and Sara are  feeding children and they take their job seriously, not a french fry or laffy taffy in sight.  By the way, those vegans, when they aren't feeling so goddamn proud of themselves, are either shopping for food, chopping it up, preparing it and finally eating. Without fatty vein-riddled meat on your plate you pretty much eat all day to maintain fullness and nutrition.  Of course, there is beans or nuts for your protein fix, but they ain't no cheeseburger.

I pick up Sara's left hand and tsk, tsk there is no ring on that finger.  We've already picked it out, says Jim, we are presently amassing funds and there are some concerns.  Evidently, the conscientious gem shopper must make certain his purchase  is a conflict-free diamond and so there are these jewelry ethical issues to consider.  Jim starts to explain but young Arya interrupts with a more interesting observation and the topic is tabled.

Back at the hotel my friend B.Obama is talking on that scary debt issue and don't you wish his tie was a different color than navy or red.  How about a Grinch pattern or something by Jerry Garcia?   I shook this young president's hand in a parking lot of a public school in my hometown three and a half years ago.  He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans and he squeezed my hand while he listened to an old lady's question.  I felt the spirit move, there was energy flowing from his karma to mine, possibly my imagination. The Republican response says that O's ideas are sucking the life out of the American people.  I'm not feeling anything sucked out of me and am certain I would recognize that sensation. Call me desperately Democratic.

My fingernails are three different sparkly colors thanks to the work of a granddaughter this weekend.  Dave's toenails are sporting the same color explosion and perhaps I'll forget where I put the polish remover and then Dave's visit to his gym tomorrow may result in a most interesting experience. 

pain in the lane

It's crazy white heat Iowa weather and the indexes hover near 120 degrees and Death Valley looks polar bear cool right about now.  I care for children all day and I feed my father hamburger steak tonight but my head is at the pool, my pool, my turquoise cool haven.

I hand Sonny raspberry pie under Saran wrap, grab that pink swimsuit, close the door and I am gone, baby, gone.

I crawl down Rhomberg avenue at 21.5 mph, thanks to the clueless mullet-haired fellow in front of me and then I am there, pulling into the parking lot and now it's my turn.

I tell Dave I am possessive about the swim lane.  I am there for one full hour and I expect to be able to swim  without interruption, without thinking, without needing to zigzag around other citizens who are clearly not there to swim.

There are seven people in the adult swim lane, a narrow channel designed to comfortably hold two swimmers. There is the couple who want to make out, fondle shamelessly , add undesirable body fluids to the already contaminated water. Three male swimmers who need to be big and bold and testosteroney and kick and splash and spew water into my already compromised sinus tracts.  And two swimmers who insist on doing a back stroke or a face-under-the-water slow crawl, neither are good choices with this many people. YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO SEE WHAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU, KMART SHOPPERS or better yet,  PICK A LANE, NUMBNUTS.  I watch a few head-on crashes with malicious glee.

 It would be senseless to swim in the other pool areas as they are filled with leaping, screaming, fighting children trying to outshout, outdunk, outpluverize each other.  Lifeguards are weary of the whistle wailing in their ears and walk around in a glazed daze wishing they had taken the Burger King job.

Seven, usually a good number, not tonight, it is like swimming upstream in whitewater rapids. I corner a few of the swimmers and say, in my best kindergarten teacher singsong voice, let's do this, we'll swim in a long continuous loop and this will avoid collisions.  They squint at me wondering what kind of anal retentive old lady is this and continue to swim in their Claude Kadiddlehopper  fashion.  'Cause girls and boys just wanna have fun I guess, and they do not have a mission from God to complete like I do.

woman, tired

I lied to my husband.  This is not something I do on a regular basis, in fact, I don't remember doing it at all except for the time I slipped and started smoking for three or four months, just a few a week, standing in the snow on my deck, shivering and trying not to leave telltale footprints.

When I was younger I could lie with the best, my silver tongue saved me from fierce confrontations with the ex-husband about my affair, those stories not going to happen here.  But then I grew up, I got responsible, I got to like truth and the American way and I don't do that dirty deed no more.

But I did lie this time.  I attempted to maneuver into a parking space, yes, children I was in a hurry and I didn't notice that the cretin in the Dodge macho truck was parked on the painted line and there was not enough room and I hooked my door on the fellow's fender and now I have no paint, no alignment and a bulging surface, like a sore tooth.  What I said to The Husband, "some guy scraped my car in the parking lot,"  kind of, kind of true, the words are just rearranged differently.

I shouldn't be driving these big cars. I am a small person accustomed to maneuvering in small places and guiding this tank through the city streets feels alien and unnatural.  I need to be in a Volkswagen, a moped, a pogo stick, just do me small, puh-leez. The fact that I have taken out three rear-view mirrors proves that I am not comfortable in this Chevy Impala sedan zone.

You know what I wish? Besides world peace and well-fed African children? A chauffeur, an air-conditioned limo with a thin screen TV, car fridge packed with diet Coke and Kessler's, and hours of blissful, obligation-free time.

I present you, woman, tired.

man, I'm sick of this

I am chugging up hills on my power walk, arms pumping, legs feeling like rubber bands, Ipod feeding
Beatles into my inner brain.  I am sweating and little gnats are whirling in my face and maybe I should move farther north.  And then the morning's headlines from the local paper flash into my head and I feel a tipsy gratitude that I can move these limbs at all.

 "Two wounded 133rd soldiers return to the tri-state area."  It's the photograph that takes my breath,  leaves me simmering.  The boy is nineteen years old, still in his camouflage uniform, his legs tied together, feet in giant booties like my nursing home residents wear to avoid skin ulcers.  He is paralyzed from the chest on down.  His relatives walk behind him, eyes looking at the pavement, faces stony, impeccably grieved, wanting to be gone from this crowded place. A biker guy is pumping the kid's hand, a bandanna tied around his greying hair, his leathers boast his Viet Nam participation and the boy is very scared.  His childlike face looks into the toughness of the veteran and he can't comprehend his incredibly tragic situation.

Cory will return to his home in Earlville, Iowa, a storybook kind of town and this manufactured glamor will pass. His friends will move on with their  families, watching their kids win athletic competitions and go to proms. Cory will spend years learning how to operate a body that has ceased to operate.  He will have memories of running across fields, diving into cool lakes, just pictures in his brain.

How do you not feel your legs, your stomach grumblings, your lower back ache after a hard day's work, your sexual tugs?  This kid's reality overwhelms me. I didn't know a damn thing when I was nineteen, no one does.

I thought Obama would get those kids out sooner, I was wrong.  I will continue to vote Democratic because it makes sense, but once again this American is disillusioned, Kennedy was an adulterer and crap like that.