Big wide
empty
hole
no handles
to get up and out
Dirt walls
crumble
Defeat me
Defy me
Fury
leaps at the walls
scrabbles
like scared rats
full of claws
and teeth
I am eating
dirt
Spitting dirt
Flinging dirt
Shitting dirt
Big wide empty
hole
with no handles
Holding only anger
and dirty, dirty
ugly
hurting
hands
that cannot find
the handles
that must be
there.
God wouldnn’t
build
a hole
without handles.
Would He?
Ridiculous Hope
Father brings his fist down
gradually
because it is mother with the anger problem.
His is the love
problem.
Later, he will visit
my room,
Tell me he loves me,
“Don’t worry about
your mother. She’ll
be all right in the morning,”
while his fingers …
while his fingers ….
In the morning, Mother
is not fine
she is never fine.
I am not fine, either.
Broken
Scarred
Shattered
Lost
Soul-seared to my
essential survival instinct.
Coarse.
While she screams her way
through the morning
and he gives me a wink
and a breast-pressing, breath-
holding, is-he-done hug,
I get ready for school.
He doesn’t leave until it is too late
for me to shower.
The bathroom door doesn’t
lock or keep out … things.
I go to school
Vacant
Greasy
Dirty
Targeted.
And pass something.
And fail something.
And visit the hallway.
And want to punch
everyone who makes me feel
bad or good or stupid
But that would be everyone.
And, maybe there’s hope.
Ridiculous hope.
Tomorrow hope.
Father Poltergifts
Family dinners always bring out the interesting in everyone. For some families that interesting isn’t such a good thing, what with alcoholics and abuse and such. But in our family not interesting in those awful ways. Well, I did get everyone to try absinthe … the verdict? It tastes worse than Fisherman’s Friends, those horrifyingly potent lozenges one sucks when you think you can’t feel any worse. And, then you suck on a Fisherman’s Friend and find out you were wrong. If you’re lucky you will then feel a little clearer through the sinuses. With absinthe there is no redeeming health feature. I, on the other hand, love it. It’s licorice to the max and potent in an almost tequila sort of way – keeping in mind that 80 proof tequila is 40% alcohol per volume and absinthe is 60% and it would take a stronger constitution than mine to consider drinking it without the ice water that gives it a cloudy, dreamy appearance. However, this isn’t about absinthe, in spite of the fact that its purported hallucinatory properties might have prompted the next bit if the folks who claim to have a poltergeist in their home weren’t so against the absinthe.
Okay, true. I’m not against the belief in things unbelievable but I am considered the, uh, open-minded one in the family. The others in the family? A poltergeist is a fair ways out there. But one of the couples has one. It makes odd sounds that cannot be explained by the neighbours learning the rhumba upstairs or even having a fetish for cleaning out the closets or repeatedly flushing the toilet in the wee hours. It also interferes with radio waves and electronic gadgets. The cable TV has needed repeated repair and attention in ways that Shaw Cable cannot explain. Periodically, the phone cuts out when the couple is on the phone talking to each other (one home and one away) but no other time, to no other people. And, the poltergeist moves books. Preferring to have them lying on the floor in an L-shape. At least once, believing that ‘L’ marks the spot – the spot being cat vomit.
After listening to this bit of interesting one either calls Ghost Busters or starts to laugh. So we laughed and one pound of mashed potatoes and gravy EACH later and a good helping of tryptophan-laden turkey included, we had been through several topics and were discussing how we might like to do Christmas this year. And, here is what we decided (if you use our idea, and it starts to become popular, even a religion, we would like credit):
We will celebrate Poltermas. On Poltermas Eve, Father Poltergifts will come down the chimney and rearrange the furniture and sing Perry Como songs in a haunting way. We will kill and eat poltergeese for dinner and drink polter-absinthe (okay, only one of us liked this part of the idea and she may have had a full glass by then.) The day, when not eating, drinking, or listening to Perry Como will be spent in front of the TV alternately watching the Poltergeist movie trilogy or static. Rather than playing charades, or Cranium, after dinner the brave among us will conduct a seance and consult a Quija Board.
If I make it back alive, with my first-born’s soul still firmly attached to my first-born, I will be happy to recommend the practice to others and fill in more of the details as they unfold. If only the shell of myself survives, expect to continue hearing the regular stuff and nonsense.
Happy Thanksgiving, and to all a good night.
Inspired by a Triiibes essay-fest, I offer:
COFFEE MAKES ME SICK
Coffee makes me sick. Literally. Vomiting from those very fumes that so many of you consider heavenly aroma. I cannot enter a Starbucks without shallow breathing. Some coffee shops are so smelly that I must wait on the sidewalk for companions who, led by their noses, are unwilling or unable to pass by such an opportunity to store liquid filth in their bodies. I hear your cries: “natural substance”, “throughout history”, “gone too far”, “crossed the line”. Perhaps I do vilify unfairly because of my own corporeal weakness. Coffee makes me sick.
True, I have yet to meet a person who shares my allergy to grapefruit, tonic water, and coffee. A combination of seemingly unrelated substances that, in fact, all have quinine-like properties – which leads me to fear contracting malaria more than those of you who might easily be cured of the fearsome symptoms by using quinine. (Although, there are other options.) Quinine can also be used to treat lupus and arthritis. (I’m thinking all you arthritis-sufferers might profitably add another gin and tonic to your week, right now.) So far, grapefruit has been relatively easy to avoid and my one experience with gin and tonic convinced me that I did not like gin (a horrible misrepresentation that I have rectified with any number of martinis since discovering my error.) Coffee, on the other hand, is everywhere. And, it doesn’t keep to itself.
Peanut allergies are taken so seriously that school children are disallowed the joys of peanut butter sandwiches and trail mix, lest they send their classmates into anaphylactic shock. Perfume is forbidden in doctors offices and discouraged in many places of business. Smoking, in B.C., cannot happen in buildings other than your home, and not within three metres of a door. But the smell of coffee wafting through the boardroom, down the hall, and into every crevice of the building, is considered welcoming, homey, inspiring, collegial. And, I would add, nauseating.
Shallow breathing is my friend. It is how I get through many of the “moments of your day”. Most days I am caught off guard at least once. A robust breath as a colleague rounds the corner, or I walk past a poorly marked coffee shop, or someone passes me, coffee cup aloft, on the sidewalk, and I am sick to my stomach. Usually, only queasy. Usually only for about twenty minutes afterward. But, sometimes, I am forced to sit and breath fresh air, or nibble a few Saltines. My head swims, I need to lie down for a bit. And, once in a while, I vomit and vomit and vomit. Like I have been poisoned, and no amount of oxygen deprivation has saved me.
Quinine is an easy overdose. Generally, it is given as an injection because it is so bitter and many people will vomit quinine pills up. While coffee is not directly quinine, it strikes me that coffee drinkers are dabbling in systematic poisoning. Not enough to kill them, not enough to get sick, but sufficient to upset many stomachs – especially if taken black and on an empty stomach. Somehow, my sensitivity is hyper. An overdose, for me, is a deep breath.
Would it be fair to start a campaign to have coffee only consumed in cafes with sealed doors and windows, or outside of buildings, on the sidewalk, with the smokers, away from the doorways. Restaurants could make their coffee in sealed butler’s pantries and I would be escorted to the non-coffee section. My dinner pals would retire to the coffee room for a quick espresso while I ordered dessert for us all or freshened my lipstick. Aaah, back to a world where coffee was the purview of the saved and the heathen were forced to drink fermented fluids. I’ll drink to that.
My hair is a live thing
Jealous, smothering my lovers
Clutching and holding around my
neck
and seeking my entrails.
Eager at each orifice:
mouth, nose, ears, anus…
But hair spurned!
It is not dead cuticle cut
like so many inert cheese sandwiches;
Seeing the intent, seeing
the salon and the stylist my
hair cuts me off.
It screams once, the scaredy hair
leaps, full length from my head.
Before the stylist gown rounds my
neck
and covers the evidence
my shirt is covered in grey
strands, mouse brown strands, some
thing darker and wavy I barely
recognize as my own.
I don’t feel the cuts. The chatter
of “how long?” “when was the last
time?” offend my hair on what
is a monumental occasion.
It is like sneaking off to see the end
of an inning during a funeral.
Tawdry. Insensitive. Insulting.
Speaking to deeper and moral
rot.
My hair will not communicate
with me. Distress
is obvious.
The 2 inches of sacrifice have been
with me for 3 years – my hair is long –
those inches are frayed.
Like euthanasia for hair, like assisted
suicide if it would agree that failing
health, loss of glow, danger of a break,
was unbearable, unreasonable
and time to go. But, no.
My hair is a live thing.
A jealous thing.
Sucking every dancing moment out
of its 3 years. Catching
the wind with an abandon
it did not have when young and newly made
and near my scalp. In its final moments,
the outer sheath breaking down, resilience
lost, my hair dances, forms haloes
around my face and shoulders.
It crawls lovingly. Closer, much
closer than any lover could ever hope
to come.
Dear Faithful Readers,
I have observed closely the habits of the common surfer (okay, I decided to notice what I was doing with my spare computer time.)
If one is to tear me away from repetitive games at which I barely improve – in spite of 30 THOUSAND tries, there needs to be a story or it has to make me laugh. Both is, obviously, best.
Since I am only funny to myself with occasional flashes that are recognizable by others I realize I must tell stories. Gossip with a sense of disbelief that any one could be that stupid/mean/short-sighted seem to be most engaging.
So, without further ado, I offer you stories. They may seem like my real life, and you and I may have been talking about the very same thing yesterday, but it’s not you. The names don’t even match – so stop whining.
I’m a teacher. At a school. A sort-of school. We’re in an office building where all the other tenants hate us because the students that go to this school have SADS (Spit – or Swearing – Awareness Deficit Syndrome.) They don’t realize that not everyone wants to hear the F-bomb 14 times while scuttling by a group of angry looking teenagers. They also don’t realize that not everyone likes to see huge loogies horked across the sidewalk only to land inches from their shoe.
In spite of our best efforts to herd said students around the corner so at least their gelatinous projectiles are less obvious, there always seems to be a knot or two of them on the main thoroughfare blissfully unaware of the inconvenience these straight-laced lunch-goers cause as they thread their way between conversations, arguments, debates, billowing smoke from numerous shared cigarettes, and a clear shot at an invisible spittoon.
We need a border collie.
At this sort-of school we have a lot of meetings (which I’ll get to some other time) and at one of them, I brought up the fact that my 18 pound borderpoo is excellent at herding. Maybe I could train him to round up students. He could sniff them for drugs at the same time.
We get into a huge brawl about this. Not ’cause it’s a bad idea but because everyone thinks their dog is better at herding than everyone else’s dog. So we’re yellin’ and swearin’. The F-bombs are flying, people are barking at each other, and I swear, Edgar just about bites Tom. Like usual, the quiet ones (there are 2 of them on our staff of 14) have been observing and are now so fed up they are leaving. Mandy notices them leaving and whistles to get everyone to shut up.
Trent says, “Ten of us have dogs. That’s a 2 week rotation. If it’s your dog’s day, then it’s your day to supervise outside. Figure it out. You and your dog.”
Of course, my dog is the best ’cause he really does herd animals. The golden retriever is cuddly and some of the kids believe Cyril when he tells them the dog gets diarrhea if he hears a lot of swearing. Jennifer’s shit-poo (that’s a shitzu-poodle croxx) is just a general menace. Completely distracts her from anything approaching supervision and I almost heave thinking about all that gob stuck in it’s tummy hair. You get the idea.
Anyway, we’re kind of making it work. None of the dogs have had nervous breakdowns in the first month. Supervision is only better on the days that me and Killer are on duty, and only worse on days that Jennifer and Trixie are on duty. No real net gain. But we didn’t shut down the effort because of statistical insignificance.
Cruising into month 2 of the experiment, the Superintendent of Schools pays us a visit. Now, we like this guy, Jake. Jake Sherwood – I’ll tell you about him sometime, too. Only thing is, Trent and Tom and Jennifer and Jen all thought it was their day to bring their dog.
So, Jake Sherwood arrives, there are 4 dogs in an area where we technically are not supposed to have dogs. As Jake stops to survey the chaos (I’m sure his brain can’t quite comprehend what his eyes are seeing) a 6-foot student in baggy rapper-style pants interrupts his loud swearing to hork a loogie over his left shoulder …. right onto Superintendent Sherwood’s well-polished left Prada (I know my shoes.)
This year, we are under strict orders to be a dog-free sort of school. I’d rather keep the dogs and outlaw the loogies.
I have been posting over at Canfield of Dreams.com. We have had a hilarious exchange. Over 20 comments, many that left me with tears running down my face, my belly in stitches, and my mouth in a big ol’ grin.
The Canfield family is coming to stay in our house this August and I asked some innocent questions (well, I do confess to a few bits of personal, um, marginality) about who these people are. The responses are gut-splitting, and sometimes even seem to have a whiff of the truth about them.
Over 2500 views. All those smiling, laughing people. All of us having a better day because of a short and crazy post. Makes me want to write humour … and, yet, I can’t tell a joke to save my life. Always giving away the punchline – if I can even remember the punchline. Go check out Joel, Sue & Fiona Canfield and come back and tell me what you think.
Is it turning 50? Perhaps, watching others get even older in response to my aging has me realizing that at some point I will need to wrestle with the question of death in a personal way. Not personal, as in my friend, mother-in-law, or beloved grandmother is dying – been there, done that and there will, sadly, be more of it – but personal to my own mortal self.
So far, I have built upon ideas and beliefs that began when I was 16 years old and asking about the point of being alive. It’s a question I’ve asked in numerous ways over the decades since then. A big life change often precipitates these searches – and I’ve had a lot of big life changes. I’m tempted to just choose the ones that show up on the stress charts as the most stressful: death, marriage, divorce, moving, loss of job, serious illness for self or family, bankruptcy… and give it a number of times since I was 16. Hang on while I take off my shoes and socks and the shoes and socks of the people on the bus beside me so I can gather enough fingers and toes to do the counting…. I am at 49!
Forty-nine life-altering, psyche-wrenching events in 34 years. Granted, I am a little more relaxed about moving than some people – oops, just remembered another move – but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Every move changed my life – or my life changed and I moved. I didn’t include in that count some of the events that registered right up there on the Richter scale like breaking up with someone I had been dating for 2 years (I have more than one, more than 2, instances of that particular stress.)
This should make me a freakin’ meaning of life genius with all the times I have visited the concept.
The short answer is we are here to create and serve. And, that’s all you get today, because I am thinking about dying rather than living.
As a sly and rebellious teenager I liked to say that Heaven was one great big orgy of souls. Essentially, I believe that, but less vulgarly.
When we die our bodies decompose – whether by fire or slow rot – and the constituent molecules are released back into the cycle of the earth. My carbon will return to the soil, will find its way into some celery, will be eaten by Justin Bieber who will breathe it out where it will be captured by a decorative fern on a side table in a hotel lobby, ultimately ending up in a compost heap and mingling with some other carbon. At that point, I might be spread on a garden and repeat, or the compost might be left for millennia while I turn into coal and diamonds, or oil. Maybe there will be a world disaster and the next thing you know my carbon is part of a new branch of evolution.
Some of my magnesium might have already found its way into a vitamin capsule taken by a pregnant woman and into her baby … where it reunites with some of my spirit matter that has been following similar decomposition and dissemination cycles in Heaven.
At first, both body and spirit are transformed by death but reasonably intact. As time goes on, the matter (spirit or physical) disperses. My spirit bits will mix with the spirit bits of others. It will feel like the greatest connection ever. It will solve the yearning for union in a way nothing on earth can. However, after many years of sacrificing a sense of individual self to the ecstasy of love and belonging the spirit bits will coalesce, not the same spirit bits that were once named Caitlyn but a different conglomeration, and find their way back to humanity.
My version of reincarnation – and why we don’t remember the last time except, perhaps, in snippets. So, why “empathy” in the title instead of “orgy”?
Because I was listening to Dr. Brene Brown, talk about Shame and Empathy and it occurred to me that the best death would be a conscious transition from life where you are as connected to others as a human can possibly be – empathetic to the point of blurring the lines between self and others (hopefully, I am not speaking of co-dependence and unhealthy attachments.) Maybe Mother Teresa comes to mind. Feeling the pain of the less fortunate and living among the people and their pain until the unsanitary conditions and the rough bedding are your own. Their pain is, literally, and empathetically, your pain. At some point in this connection, do you simply walk into death and the ever increasing connection of your spiritual molecules with the spiritual molecules of others?
On my other website, Imagining Better, I wrote about my friend being my Mike Holmes – at least as far as saving me from the sins of the mattress company when compounded by my own. Here’s the story:
Why is Mike Holmes the Secret Love of Canadian Women?
Sure, he’s got the cute muscles & overalls, but that’s not enough. Choosing a human object of desire is not too different from choosing an ultimate pair of shoes.
Mike Holmes isn’t for the young who will be forgiven their short-term objectives, or for the superficial miss looking for svelte, leading man material. No, Mike is providing something irresistible to the average woman: someone to solve all the problems and do it right. In spite of our great Canadian independence we need to be taken care of – sometimes.
I was proud of my handy-self the other day. We bought a new bed. Delivery included, and the old bed removed. Of course, before I get to my personal prowess we must confront the particular incompetence of the delivery and removal duo.
And, somewhere in the story we will find my personal Mike Holmes saving my day.
The Bed Arrives
My very narrow Victorian stairway makes it difficult to get things up and down. Things like beds & armoires.
The duo had no discernible difficulty getting the new mattress & box spring up the stairs, but deemed it impossible to get my old crazy bed down. Now, my old bed was created by a mad scientist and was like a box spring and mattress in one. Not easy to get through the constricted spaces, but someone got it up there, surely these expert bed movers could get it down.
After much stupidness in the form of pretend problem-solving that sounded like, “We thought of that,” and, “That will never work,” I finally told them if they weren’t planning to figure it out we may as well quit now. Their helpful advice was to take the bed apart and then put it back together and they could pick it up later. I saved my response for the dog who has, on occasion, heard those words before.
The Bed is Done
Once the duo was gone I did take the bed apart. In the words of my soon-to-be Mike Holmes, “She was so mad, she ripped the bed apart with her bare hands and threw it down the stairs.” That was pretty much true. My anger was pretty meticulous but there were moments of brute force required to separate springs from plastic inserts. And, the kicking the parts through the front door onto the porch was downright petulant.
Once the adrenaline was spent, the overwhelming feeling was helplessness. I felt like a child who just wanted a parent to fix it. Instead, I now had a wreck of bed springs & latex foam on my front porch and no way to make that reality different.
Luckily for me, friends are building a garage a few doors down. I went and expressed my outrage, starting with a gentle and reasonable question about dumpster space and working myself to a crescendo of expletives. These genuinely good men were amused and sympathetic; couldn’t help teasing me & my foul mouth while offering to toss the remains of my rage in the back of the pick-up truck.
Problem solved.
Mike Holmes
But just like Mike Holmes who comes into the home of a victim of contractor hell and not only does it right, the driver of the pick-up truck – now full of bed parts – went the extra mile.
Rather than go to the dump and pay a fee, rather than have the bed company unaware of their unhelpful delivery team, he arrived at the bed store with the bed parts and let them know about my above mentioned fit and his intention to leave the bed for them. “What are you proposing?” asked the bewildered salesman.
“Nothing. I’m here to leave the bed. You might want to phone the customer.”
“What are you proposing?”
After several of these exchanges, the salesman had the brilliant idea that the dumpster at the back of the store might have space for the bed parts.
My Mike Holmes in shining armour reckoned that might be an adequate solution.
This is why Canadian women are secretly, and not-so-secretly, in love with Mike Holmes. Not only does he solve the problem but he adds a sophisticated insult in the direction of the perpetrator. An insult expressed as doing the job so much better than required – just to make it right.
Mike Holmes is a knight in shining armour. How lucky I am to have found one in my own neighbourhood!
PS. My Prowess
After the bed guts were taken care of, I got out the cordless drill, some bits, a piece of 4 x 4, a screwdriver, pliers, an allen wrench gizmo of multiple sizes, and got to work. That afternoon, I built a new leg for a bed frame.
On a roll, I revamped an old bed frame & assembled a new-to-me bed frame that I had primed & painted a couple of days before. And, then, I hauled mattresses & box springs into place using my own bulging muscles (& stubborn willpower), made the beds with new sheets, vacuumed, and collapsed. Happy.
Groupon
Sounds like a “group getting it on”? A kind of fish? Some type of groping done while wearing crampons or tampons? It definitely doesn’t sound wonderful, but it is.
Groupons are group coupons. If Groupons have come to your city, sign up: Groupon
The way this works is the Groupon people approach businesses – or businesses approach them – and a deal is crafted. The business says it needs to have x number of participants to offer the deal and Groupon.com puts it out there.
Once the minimum number of people buying the coupon is reached, the deal is officially on. But only for a limited time. One or two days, typically.
And the deals are incredible. Often 50% off restaurant meals (& drinks), movies, florists, and so on. It’s a fun way to try new businesses in your area for a fraction of the regular cost.
The business hopes you like them enough to come back at regular price, tell your friends, and ultimately, that it not only recovers the loss of the deep discount but generates increased revenue and a broader following. Win-win.
Because I’m loving this so much, I signed up & if I refer you, they give me $10 in Groupon credit. Groupon
You can sign up to refer friends, too. If you don’t want to sign up, but you think everyone should know about Groupon, send them here to click. Groupon