My Way.

Lately, a friend confided to me that he has lost everything. A plan for suicide, he explained, was how he got to this point. For the past few days this has stuck in my mind.

Being troubled- and I mean a truly troubled person with a life that’s rife with troubledness- has a strange barometer. You can’t tell who’s had it worse, who deserves pity, how to help. You can’t tell anything, in fact, and most people just toss you out. You’re crazy, they say, and move along. Even when people try to help you, when they literally show up to pick you up off of the floor, they get tossed out. I don’t need you, says your misery, preferring her own company.

Recently, I hired a new therapist and she asked me, “What do you remember before your father died?”

I remember my mom, fat and pregnant with my younger sister, Laura, too large to bend over to reach ingredients for cookies. I remember LOVING Woody Woodpecker, never knowing when it actually came on, always a treat to hear that ring-ding yodeling laugh. I remember walking my stuffed poodle down the sidewalk on a makeshift leash created from linked plastic charm necklaces, hoping passersby would think it was my real dog. I wanted a real dog. I remember the first time tying a shoelace knot made sense to me, the first thing that seemed complicated that I was able master. I remember the feeling in my brain, literally feeling a new connection was made, something was different inside there, more able to assess the complex. I remember when we had to stay with people from church. Something about dad, something was wrong with dad. Gray skin, carrot juice, blue flannel pajamas. Cancer. I remember Kristen coming in, telling me in the way an older sister tells you a rattling ghost story in a blanket fort, “I saw dad die. I saw his eyes turn black.”

Black eyes, dead face. This became the sun of my world, upon which everything darkened. What do you do, when your most complex thought to date had been securing your own shoelaces? When the rope is cut, what happens to a mind that’s still climbing uphill?

Every day I work at this, all of what haunts me. Every fucking day. I fuck up all of the time. And I keep going. Not  much truly offends me, but giving up, truly throwing in the towel on living, that pisses me off. Suicide? Charles Manson, sure. Richard Speck, be my guest.

But you?

You’ve already made it further than me, on less. You help me think differently. You write. You picked me up off of the floor, sure you may have put me there once or twice, but you picked me up. Brushed me off. Listened to Frank Sinatra with me in the dark. You see me the way I am, naked, even with all my clothes on.

If you take yourself down, it validates the darkness. AND WE ARE ALL TRYING SO DAMN HARD TO FIND A LIGHTBULB.

I wrote this, I’ve had this in my head all day, for if this person had killed himself, tears in my eyes at the thought. I no doubt would have found out some obscene way, through Facebook or a text message. This is what I would have said to you, after everyone had left, alone with you.

You, a pen with no ink.

Your Way

Look at you, smooth-faced, peaceful. Nothing like you were before, in your coroner’s makeup. Corners of your mouth slightly upturned, a smirking smile now permanently resting upon your lips, evidence of your final moment, one thought:

 My troubles, the feel of them, are almost over.

Rest, dear friend, in your satin bed, in your preservation box. You’re trapped now forever, canned in the misery that brought you here. You have no chance for sunshine now, the darkness you suffered is now your black lantern, your useless guide on your path to nowhere.

Traitor.

You solved nothing.

You left us here, all of us like you, afflicted.

Traitor.

Good troubled men are hard to find.

You abandoned us, spears-in-hand.

One less warrior in our impossible fight.

 

Thirteen.

A friend was telling me a story.  “So, my friend Joey dates a Victoria’s Secret Model,“ he said, looking around at all of the larger than life posters of the hottest women alive, “but I’ve never seen her in anything.”  I wanted to pick up pajamas in Victoria’s Secret, and, after having lunch, this particular friend agreed to accompany me to a nearby store. Childlike, is how I would describe his reaction upon entering, like a rosy-cheeked doughboy in a pastry shop, his eyes darting from product to product, registering deliciousness. Sweetly pitiable is how I viewed him because….. well, in the great words of ONYX: “Let the boys be boys.”

He continued, “But my friend Joey, yeah, he moved to New York and became some big shot financier. Ha, he thinks he’s such hot stuff now, with his slick-backed hair and his penthouse apartment.  What they don’t know he’s that he’s just a punk kid from Oklahoma—“

And here I stopped him, because I’ve always wondered about this.  I have a friend who was college roommates with the lead singer of a very popular band, and he does this same thing. “I wrote Chris’s freshman comp paper/Once Chris took a dump in a communal shower/That bastard Chris still owes me $50… He’s just my fucking ex-roommate from UK!”

Why is it that we feel the need to negate all of the accomplishments of people, especially the well-accomplished, by claiming they’re “just a kid from somewhere”?

It seems to me that, growing up, everyone is a punk at some stage: awkward and ridiculous and floundering—Children, we call them, and every child “is just a kid from somewhere”.  We tell kids: You can be anything you want to be! You can change your life! You are caterpillar, be a butterfly! Some kids get a butterfly tattoo and call it a day’s work, while other kids actually become that butterfly, taking off, being better than who they used to be and having more than they used to have. Adults, we call them.  No one was born a middle-aged woman with a decent purse and a nice pair of shoes.

Yesterday I graduated from college. My friends Jenny and Eric drove down from Nashville to accompany me, as I have no family here and am finding myself romantically (yes, again) alone.  Over breakfast, I was assessing whether I felt different, like a different person, and in many ways I do.  I’ve spent almost 12 years working for this, and I’ve accomplished it. No matter what I do, no one can take this away from me. This separates me, not from people who are smarter than me or from people who are more well-rounded or less crazy. It separates me from people who didn’t work as hard as I did. It’s a piece of paper that’s part of who I am now. No one can take this away from me, fire me from it, file it for divorce from me.

And I’m proud of it.

If news of me doing well were to ever travel, I’m sure everyone who’s ever met me, those from my past life, will say, “Ugh, Allison? She’s just that girl who used to…” And I know all the shameful, embarrassing, and unbelievable things trailing behind that sentence.  I know Allison.  That crass bitch, that abashment, that egg on her face.  I’ve spent the last ten years writing about that kid, that idiot, that punk girl from Kentucky.

To celebrate my graduation, a dear person in my life bought me a brand new Louis Vuitton handbag, one I would never spend that much on. All year I have been saying to myself that if I made it to this point, I would celebrate by buying myself this bag. “It will evidence my accomplishments,” I told no one who cared, “I’ll deserve it.” I wanted to do something for myself that outwardly shows those around me that, in some way, I have it made. I have something that is coveted and out of reach for some people.  I am special and worthwhile, a $2000 purse will say that for you.

Had I worked hard enough to, say, date a Victoria’s Secret model then I might consider that evidence of my accomplishments. Isn’t that why we all buy all this shit?  BMWs, DVF dresses, Louis Vuitton handbags and Louboutin shoes.  All of these trappings we robe ourselves in are our evidence, our papers that prove us. These things show the world- not just people from our past- that we have made it, we graduated, we worked hard…

We try so hard to prove to each other that we are better than those punk kids we used to be.

Nice things, new things, expensive things….  Sure, any dummy with access to a credit line can have many of the finer things in life. But I’m starting to think that not all of our ostentations are pretentious and intended to demean or degrade, so much as it is that no matter how much wiser we grow, we are always like children, painting pictures, showing our peers excitedly and proudly “Look, Ma! Look what I can do!”

Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Math?

I wrote this story on this exact day last year. Tomorrow I graduate. I’ve found my bricks. 

So, I’m back in school again, again. Every year or so I’m back in school. It’s like a manageable drug habit or something: I get real into it, have the most amazing time, then something “bad” happens and I feel compelled to quit. Over and over and over. It’s the exact same limbo as any other bad habit, draining time, money, effort, and producing no beneficial results.

I can’t really put “Kicked ass in Ecology one semester” on my resume. In fact, no matter what my experience has been, any schmuck with a bachelor’s degree in basket weaving is a more likely candidate for anything than I am. Let’s not even get into the Allison-has-been-struggling-for-ten-years-to-achieve-this-and-that’s-something-to-be-proud-of nonsense. Caring for your cancer-striken grandmother for ten years is admirable. Spending ten years trying to finish college through a string of unfortunate events and self-made messes is just…. a pile of mess.

My first day back to school this year was an exercise in self-ageism. Looking around the room, all of my thoughts settled upon the ideas that, one, I shouldn’t have eaten so much cake after turning 30 and, two, I have nothing in common with people who are likely to have a One Direction tattoo. I no longer wield the power of youthful, girlish charm that I once considered such a heavy weapon against potential failures of life. Now, I’m just a garish face of academic past-prime, clinging to my withered dreams by my crow’s feet.  I felt like everyone was staring at me in zoo-animal wonderment: “What is her natural habitat?” “What region of the world does she come from?” “Carnivore or herbivore?” “Do you think she can even remember the order of operations?”

I would like to clarify that the last question was based on a true story. On my first day of Stats class, the teacher asked me to calculate the answer to a problem because I had been able to identify the correct equation to use. Of course, it having been almost seven years since computing anything harder than a tip, I’ve forgotten some of those math rules. (Not Garvey math rules. One can never forget the Garvey math rules. Adding fractions? Draw a teepee. Multiplying fractions? You go straight across. Quadratic formula? Boom boom boom boom All over 2a!) So I plug the equation into my calculator and come up wrong.

The young man sitting to my left turn to me and not-so-discretely asks, “Did you remember the order of operations?”

Fuck you, I can order operations. I passed calculus while you were still labeling your parts of speech, you turd-born-with-an-iPhone-in-hand, I’m just rusty, it’s been seven years since I’ve been up to bat at the TI-83! Get off my case, jeez, give me a warm up problem will ya?

Poor kid was just trying to be helpful.

In another class, one instructor proposed we go around the room and perform the proverbial ice breaker. Oh lord, I thought to myself, I’m fucking 30 please don’t make me break ice…!!!!! I just found out who Carly Rae Jepsen is and I’m wearing a blouse from Jones New York. Really, what am I going to offer? “Hi, my name is Allison and I’ve spent most of the past 30 years being an under-achieving, over-privileged goddamned piece of work! I also have a son and a dog named Biscuits.” Not exactly a segue to the frat party invites.

At one point I tried to convince myself that being older would give me an edge. Experience, ah, yes, that’s the key. Turns out every open-minded coed watches Bill Maher, listens to NPR, knows how to properly eat sushi, and remembers the fucking order of operations. In comparison, I’ve got nothing new to offer.

Waiting outside a Physiology lecture I overheard an adorable (until she spoke) young girl telling another young guy that she had been pulled over 18 times in the past 3 months.

“I try to get pulled over just to see if I can get out of it,” she vacuously boasted,”That’s what I do when I’m bored!”

Really! Well! You know what I do when I’m bored? Make notes of all the stupidest things I have ever heard.

Ugh, I just couldn’t stop staring at the young man she was talking to, in shock as well as admiration for the fact that he obviously was sticking out that much stupidity in the hopes of getting laid. He deserved it. That was a brutally stupid statement. Even I can’t help but feel embarrassed for that girl when I replay that in my head.

And when I’m alone I think to myself, Are these the people I’m competing with? Sure, I crushed this semester like orange soda, beating out tons of lesser minds with my superior skills of awesome. But is this who I am up against in my future?

I have long suffered this battle. When I get the urge to check up on (stalk) people from my past, I’m more-times-than-not shocked at the amount of dummies doing “better” than me. How did that slut-bag from Rockbar end up as a nurse anesthetist with two gorgeous kids? How did that fat pig from my old chemistry lab marry rich, now living on a sprawling ranch in Telluride? Probably because they weren’t a total bitch like I am. Probably because they had more patience or bigger boobs or didn’t act like a total loon or write over-sharing stories. But let’s pretend we all can’t think up any good reason, and that the world is simply crazy and unfair.

Perhaps I am the most ungrateful person in the world. Maybe, my ultimate life’s struggle is that I am simply more accustomed to chaos. I see all of these people around me. Some of them just get it right, they go about life and things sort out they way they are supposed to and they have college degrees and then marry in happy ceremonies not riddled by soul-crushing doubts and they give their careers time and they enjoy Batman movies together and then have planned children and homes with things inside their homes like matching end tables and interesting serving platters.

Then there are other people, people who seem awkward or hopeless at first just one day do what they should and carry on to a stable life with health insurance and decent wages and weird-but-successful relationships and possibly Jesus.

And then there’s me.

I mean well. I have no patience. I get overly-enthusiastic just to burn out quickly. I have trouble finishing tasks, while the first hyperbolic “five minutes” of every task I start is the most dedicated five minutes of anything ever done. I get sad. I am afraid. I don’t like to repair, preferring to replace everything… from appliances to relationships. I don’t read directions thoroughly, I just “go for it”.  Most of the time I feel lost. Those last two sentences back-to-back are telling.

I have made no stronghold. I am the pig who built her house out of straw. So poorly, weakly built that my house doesn’t even need a Big, Bad Wolf. The smallest friction of an unintentional gust of wind is enough to blow my house down.

And there I am, fat, pink and cartoonish.

Exposed.

Still searching for bricks.

A Great Divorce (Clear My Head)

A moment in time
Defined
From saying hello to the silent goodbye
To the meaningless words
And what we left unsaid
But we both knew we meant it
And that’s good
The time in between wouldn’t seem short
But once it’s over, it’s over
And there’s no going back
I’m glad I had time for one last strong hug
One last reminder

I am not alone by myself

Today is Your Lucky Day!

So, I dream. I don’t mean like I’m a “dreamer” and I have great ideas for a country album or building a business empire or some seemingly hair-brained theory that scholars now mock but will someday earn me a Nobel prize. I just mean I have dreams.

This morning I woke up from a dream in which I owned and worked at a renaissance-themed frozen yogurt parlor, like Medieval Times on dairy. It was your typical cheesy get-up: plastic, faux-stone walls trimmed in open crenelation, arched gothic-revival “windows” that framed murals of cartoonish jousting knights and maypole dancers, and me, a serving wench, in a hapless bliaut dress. It was the kind of place whose failing authenticity is only further saddened by it being located in a shopping mall.

While I worked my daily grind in this past-to-present juxtaposition, I had a fantastic secret. The secret was that this modern, yogurt-store life was just a cover…. It was a parallel universe for the medieval life in which I actually lived and had responsibilities. From time-to-time, I would be wandering the shopping mall, giggling at young men in Foot Locker or eyeing shoes at Bakers and then –smokepoof!- some rad wizard shows up and tells me I have to go back to the past and slay a dragon or whatever.

In this dream’s ultimate quest, I got called to rescue my real-life son from an evil witch who, for whatever reason, wanted jurisdiction over my realm and free use of my swimming pool (when life gets serious, my dreams involve swimming pools). The whole ordeal was so stressful: skillful swordplay giving rise to dramatic acts of witchcraft involving smoke and animal morphology, loads of running and horseback riding, saddle-less bare backs chaffing my crotch area. Television makes those things look so badass, but, let me tell you, there’s nothing worse than dismounting a valiant steed to reveal giant inner-thigh blisters and then having to wield a magic sword the exact weight of my own body. In this dream I was (dis-) graced with the same complete lack of coordinated skill that I have in real life, and the whole “saving mankind” thing was such an utter bother.

The dream’s details here escape me, but after somehow being triumphant over the world’s dark forces, I had to shake hands and pledge everlasting protection to those in need and gallantly dish out forgiveness to my enemies and eat a lot of potatoes and pheasant. I didn’t want to do any of those things,; I didn’t want to fight or hurt or slay or be honorable or be chivalrous or claw my way through a small dirt passage I uncover in a stonewalled prison cell to escape in the nick of time.

All I wanted to do was get back to the fantasy part of my in-dream life, where I put sprinkles on some fucking hot fudge sundaes.

What I loved about this particular dream is this reverse expectation. Instead of being the mundane part, the themed yogurt shop was the fantasy life. An onlooker might normally expect that the boring times of life were spent in a mall shop hustling soft serve to bratty children and toothless geriatrics… mindless, ice-cream-scooping hours spent in bored anticipation of exciting times scoring up feudal battles and bent-backwards kisses from hot paladins. This was not the case, however, and upon waking, I have been sitting here, writing, wondering what this could possibly mean. Why wouldn’t I want to be the celebrated, nonpareil hero of any world, especially a dream world in which consequences are so ungoverned?

In my real life, here I am: about to FINALLY graduate college, completing this quest in which I have been in a scavengerous battle for almost thirteen years. But here, at thirty-one, I still enjoy the life of a college student. Sure, I study hard and make good grades and other productive things. But I still get to live life without real borders: I don’t have a mortgage I’m barely keeping up with or multiple mouths to feed or credit card debts or minivan payments or obscene medical bills or burdensome aging parents who have to move in with me or anything else that constrains any other individual into a begrudging fight-for-your-life.

I’m just a girl, roaming, unarmed.

Over this past year, my waking life had been calm and routine and day-to-day, and then something happened. Somehow, in this real world, a set of problems emerged- there appeared a dragon!- and I am currently fighting him off. Since I am actually Allison and actually lack all sword fighting skills (both literal and metaphorical) I am doing a botched job of saving myself.

Right now, literally this day, I’m looking at the dragon of Real Life and I’m terrified. The armor of reality is heavy, the weapons are archaic, and I’m just too fucking lazy and scared to walk into this beast’s fire and slay the wretched thing.

Other people make it look so easy. Other people make me think they have rooms full of taxidermied dragon heads, and the hard-won treasure associated with the defeat. I don’t know how to live in a real world like that. I don’t know how to escape the fantasy world of eating ice cream on my couch while simultaneously watching reruns of Seinfeld. I don’t know how to exchange my dream life of mall shopping and giggling at boys and candy and swimming pools… for a real life of beasts and heroes.

The message here, I believe, is that life is manageable, pleasant even, until shit gets real. Eating cake is awesome, until your pants don’t fit. Dating is awesome, until the self-sacrifice or self-centeredness that comes with an actual relationship. Staying in school is awesome, because you get rewarded for finding answers to things that have already been answered…. you are either right or wrong in these things, but an adult life just isn’t a standard scale-grading teacher.

Expectations, if unclear, are so easily defeated. And my own expectations are consistently undefined, or redefined, if they even exist at all. I have no idea what my future looks like. I wish someone would just tell me. Or I wish I could buy a huge book that would be like a dictionary to define the true outcome of everything I could possibly find myself facing…

From time-to-time, I see overzealous, newly-married couples post sweet somethings on Facebook. After two divorces myself, I laugh at the image of “I’ll never leave you,” being whispered into a smiling ear during a first dance, then cut to seven years in the future when the embittered groom is moonlighting as a party clown to pay for a messy divorce. I thought having my son was going to be all mommy-baby, cut to twelve years of mixed struggle erupting into my current, acrimonious custody battle. My excitement for getting two puppies was focused on twice the snuggles, forgetting about twice the dogshit. Finally grasping my bachelor’s degree was supposed to propel me into the land of opportunity, not scare last night’s pizza out of my ass with more unresolved choices about my future. I thought I could handle being just friends while being more than just friends. I thought I could watch Paranormal Activity alone. I thought that people were more like me and that short shorts looked good on me and that being pitiably quirky was a virtue and that being honest was going to get easier someday.

If I had the reference book I just described, I could have looked up any of the above scenarios when faced with them and prevented the unpleasant outcomes before they ever happened.

I see myself, I pick up the book, I flip to the Appendicies and finger trail down to How to defeat a dragon. In a fervor of excitement, I flip to the correct page upon which this answer would likely be written:

“Don’t be stupid, Allison. Dragons aren’t real.”

Porcelain God (repost)

This story was originally written years ago, and I was recently encouraged by someone awesome to repost…. so Here Goes!

 

Porcelain God                                                                                                            6.23.09

I have never been the kind of person who is afraid to poop in public. Not meaning I would simply drop trou and defecate in front of the general population, that would be frowned upon.  But in any restroom, upon the call of nature, I’ve always felt that if I gotta go, I gotta go.  And if I can reasonably guess that everyone else does it, what really is the problem?

It astounds me: the lengths that people will go to attempting to prevent the shared idea that they poop. Many times I’ve been in a public restroom, or semi-public, in a stall next to someone I know needs to let it all out. They sit in pin-drop silence, trying to hide any recognizable shoe attributes, each poorly stifled fart a shameful foreshadowing of the crap ahead. Waiting… waiting… and waiting for you to, Jesus, just get OUT.. I mean, who in their right mind would hold onto a big indigestible mass of bacteria and feces at the expense of some stranger‘s unconfirmed opinion?

Pathetic, I think, as I wait a little longer. I shift about… mosey out of the stall…wash my hands for exactly the proper thirty seconds… then…perhaps slightly cruelly…smooth every hair into place in front of the water-spotted mirror.  Perhaps it is my intolerance for people who do not share my exact philosophy on excrement, perhaps it gives me some consternated sense of power.  Whatever the case, it’s simply too easy to make poop suffer.

A girlfriend recently delighted me with the revelation that, during a vacation with her boyfriend, she did not poop for an entire week. How awful, I thought, and envisioned her being filled from rectum to esophagus, painfully stuffing down that last coconut shrimp. I wondered if that satisfied her boyfriend, if checked his bank balance in relief, the whole vacation a well-designed plan to find out the truth: SHE POOPS NOT! Realistically, chances are he didn’t even notice she was harboring all that shit… unless of course the bedroom intimacy took an unfortunate adventurous turn. This was not part of the story’s point, however, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

I have often wondered what it is about people that makes them so afraid of what they, as human beings, are.  People are surprising in the way that they are so unsurprising. In one way or another, we all do the same things for which we negatively judge and accost each other.  I’m afraid, my friends, that we are all one kind of skin-sack of shit.

If you think yourself otherwise, you’ve got yourself fooled.

In my profoundly mediocre existence, I have sometimes come to understand that I am figuratively doing this. That for some inexplicable and ridiculous reason, I’m holding onto something that really does nothing but make me squeeze my metaphorical butthole.  It is not good, it is in fact terrible and painful, but perhaps to me in that moment not as terrible and painful as the idea of losing what I’m holding onto. Perhaps I am afraid of what people will think about it. Perhaps they will call me the shit and praise the feces.

But what good is that to me anyway;  if I don’t poop, dammit. And get on about it.

With All The Lights Still On (Ghost Story, repost)

This is an old story from 2009 that I am reposting for a dear, sweet friend! The story still stands, but ages and life are way different 🙂

 

With All The Lights Still On

There is a dead bird on my front porch and I firmly believe that FedEx has avoided leaving my much-awaited package because of it.

My front door is surrounded by glass windows, the one above the door being the widest. It is this window that birds, it seems, cannot refuse smashing into, often causing them to die and burdening me with a fresh carcass at my door. Birds are all fancy feathers and songs till they’re lying dead at the entrance to your home. Then they’re just a nuisance; just stupid flying rats.

The sound created by birds hitting my window has never made it onto my list of dismissable house noises. It is loud, firm, and I confuse it with the sound of my front door shutting. And – if you couldn’t see this coming from ten miles away- I usually physically freeze, stop breathing and chalk it up to, yes…

a ghost.

If you know me, you’d think me silly for stories’ sake. If you know me well, you know I am deathly afraid of ghosts. Though I’ve never seen one, heard one, talked to one, or received any infinitesimal confirmation that ghosts exist, I am completely convinced that I am on the continuous verge of being haunted. Sure, who hasn’t slept for a week after watching The Grudge or refused to return a scary movie because the cover art is visibly ‘uninviting’? Who hasn’t, in their adulthood, slept at the foot of their parents’ bed after being unforeseeably subjected to a commercial for Mothman Prophecies? And really, when wasn’t the last time you made your mom and best friend come over to your house while you moved because-you claimed- a ghost was using your keyless entry to repeatedly lock you out of your car? (Yes, this is a true story. Happened over the summer. And, yes, my shame runs ocean-deep.)

I may not fear short skirts, competition, public speaking or public drunkenness, saying how I REALLY feel, admitting mistakes, falling off the bar or karaoke. But ghosts? Just.. Plain. Frightening.

On our recent trip to North Carolina I forced my sister and son to hear countless episodes of my favorite radio program This American Life. One episode, titled Fake Science, featured a story on amateur ghost hunters as well as audio of what they claimed were ghostly voices. In the back of my mind the bell of probable indecency rang being that I had a six-year-old in the car, but, really, I thought, Are you ever too young to be terrified? I have this horrible habit of considering my son adult-like, like me, forgetting that I myself am not much tougher than any average, dopey little girl.

For the entire duration of the program I reconfirmed with my son that he was not scared. No, he said, and asked even that I replay the audio. Here is when it’s a good thing that world leaders don’t call on me in times of national crises, because if my answer isn’t, “Fuck it! Let’s drink!” my default resolution is going to be, “Paralyzing fear is no excuse!” In other words: Despite anyone else’s presence, I can’t resist anything that interests me.

So we listened and discussed and reached our own unworldly conclusions. Then, so I thought, we dropped it.

My son instantly changed in the dark. That night he cowered at shadows and harbored tears of terror in the corners of his eyes which skewed his perceptions and caused him not to leave my side. Finally I told him it was time to take a shower. In the storm of refusal that set in, my son screamed, cried, even clawed his way out of the shower and gripped me with the finality of rigor mortis. “Please don’t leave me,” he begged, screaming. “Pleeeeeease!!!” My initial anger was broken by his desperate action. As I held my son in all his vulnerability, my heart broke, and, still holding him, I stepped into the shower. I was fully clothed: jeans, tennis shoes, t shirt, hat even. I stood with him for(what seemed like)ever, reassuring him over and over and over that “There are NO such things as ghosts,” and in that very breath seeing my arms full of goosebumps and resisting the urge to look over my shoulder to perhaps see some phantasmal figure shaking its head at my hypocrisy.

How is it, I questioned myself, that I got here like this? What course of action ultimately led me to be standing fully clothed in a shower, washing a crying six year old, claiming that the very thing I am ultimately, completely, and unequivocally afraid of does not, in any way, exist?

Aiden and I stood across from each other on the bathroom floor, each pitiable in our own respect. “You’re all wet, Mommy,” he said with a look that showed he knew I had just endured something unpleasant and unnecessary and may be on the verge of snapping into complete hysterics. The truth is: I was angry. I was angry at me because I do so many things I know better than to do, I do them with little thought, and my doing them causes upset in other people and reverts much more heartache back onto me. I was angry at me because I had to stand there in all my cowardice and explain to my son that I am scared too, that I have to choose to be brave, explaining to him in a web of words that I’m something simply stuck inbetween a woman and a child.

My best conclusion- my punishment of sorts- was dripping wet clothes and a bit tongue. Perhaps it is my own unwillingness to face my own fears, perhaps it is my complete disregard for other people on the fatuous premise that a little raunch never hurt anyone. But I do know this above that: You can’t cause a problem and blame anyone else for yourself being showered in its consequence.

I went into my room alone and laid in bed barely-breathing still with all the lights on, checking the hallway for any ghosts that may happen to pass by.

Fruit, Flatulence, and F**k-You’s.

So, yes I did recently get back together with Adam but, no, this is not a story about a “love story”.

Today I drove by a Moby Dick restaurant, (if you can call it that so much as it is a serving establishment of “edible” inedbiles) and saw the kiosk out front simply reading: “YOLO”. Not the expected:  Fish Sandwich $1 or 2 for $2 Squid Bites. Why would Moby Dick want to tell me YOLO?  This made me roll my eyes and also angry, as there are two things in the world I simply cannot stand: ephemeric platitudes like “You Only Live Once” and then those ephermeric platitudes being SHORTENED INTO TEXT SPEAK. I was over YOLO as soon as it started, and have added anyone with a YOLO tattoo to my list of people who are not allowed to procreate when I am the Manager of The World.

I couldn’t get over this, as I further wondered, “Is this a warning? Does this really mean, ‘You Only Live Once (So Eat at A Better Place?’)” is this an encouragement to employees as they pull up, saying ‘You Only Live Once (And You Might Want To Consider Community College!’). Either way, I hate Moby Dicks. And I don’t want their food or their advice.

Later today I got to settling scores with some people I’ve been putting off settling scores with because I have no sense of urgency over anything except bidding in time for dresses on eBay. Things can wait, life goes on, there are drinks to be had…. I just put things off. Even important things. And especially hard things. Today I have finally mustered the courage to ask for some things I need, and the response from EVERY person was outright “Fuck You.” I was shocked. I’ve never heard those words in such amounts with such rapidity in such a short time and with such fervor, and I have been in a long lines at both the Post Office and DMV. It was enough to make me cry. People I thought I was helping, people I thought cared for me, people I got into a mix with and think it only fair to split the cost with; people aren’t so great when they owe you something… and you remind them.

So, immediately after receiving these shocking messages, I had to take a client. She was and older lady with a contorted body and a gentle countenance. Though I had just dried my eyes from evidence of victimization, I immediately thought, “Wow, she’s got it worse.”

She laid on my table and as I was massaging her scalp my finger literally got STUCK IN A HOLE. This poor, mangled bag of bones had a freaking HOLE in her skull that my finger got stuck in.

“Oh,” she said sweetly, “this feels so wonderful! I have had three brain surgeries.”

All I could think was: Damn.

As the session progressed, I was attempting to not harvest my frustrations and anger in that present moment. I am awesome at being a tormented soul and feeling bewildered, and I am getting very, very good at crying over completely solvable things. Usually when I get upset I just call everyone I know and yell. Adding lacrimations to this tactic is making me certifiably pitiable. Woe really is me.

Then all of the sudden this poor, old, hole-headed grannysmith let out a couple of HUGE farts. This happens during many sessions, and is no big deal to me. I’m way used to it. But she followed the flatulence up by saying, “Oh I’m sorry. Too many cherries.”

If you know me well, you can likely envision the true look of confusion that crossed my face although there was no one else in the room to see it. Wait, what? When I fart, I don’t know the reason other than I needed to fart. Explaining my farts has never crossed my mind, it only just happens. But I guess everyone has their own reason for everything.

Cherries, man. Why not.

Something about the earlier YOLO made me think of the saying, “Life Just a Bowl of Cherries”. And I thought about that. And I thought about all the amazing things happening in my life right now, especially concerning marrying the love of my life. I thought about how in just this short time I’ve loved a man more than I ever thought possible, and how GOOD he is to me. I thought about how he, over 9 years, has never once hurt me or taken advantage of me or said one unkind thing. And then I thought about all the assholes I’ve mixed in with over the past 9 years and how I have been hurt and taken advantage of and been told unkind things to. And then I thought about all the people over the past 30 years, my lifetime, that I have hurt and taken advantage of and basically said “fuck you” to.

And I thought about this lady farting and explaining it by cherries. And you know what? Screw a bowl;  Life really is just a Fart of Cherries. Sometimes you are the one enjoying the cherries, and sometimes you are the bystander smelling the shit of someone else’s. That’s it. We all do what we hate to get. We’re all good and “bad”. We all benefit and suffer. Sometimes you smelt it, sometimes you dealt it.

It really is that simple.

Today I had veritable cherries, and today I was both literally and figuratively farted on. And I guess I have to just chalk it up to Life.

( And to my sister: I’m sorry I farted on you.)

Allison Goes To College.

I am reposting this for my dear friend Pipes, who says the word “college” in the most hilarious way.

college

To Speak Or Be Forced To Speak.     6.29.2010

So, I’m taking this Public Speaking class at UofL, which I love about as much as a wolf spider loves a terrified housewife with a rolled up newspaper. Why am I taking this class? Because someday I’d like to make more money. People will do crazy things for money, like become high class hookers or wrastle’ gators on television or screw Rick Patino or take public speaking courses in their late 20’s.

Seriously, I’m taking this class with twenty-five people under 21 years old. I was pregnant with my son when these guys were in fourth grade. I would not liken myself unto the words “old” or “fart”, but somehow these descriptors are riding my proverbial coat tails.

The speaking part is not the true suckitude of speech class…. it’s the preparing a whole speech about nothing and trying to feign enthusiasm to people who could not possibly care less. I would absolutely not hate this class if they’d just hand me a speech to memorize and let me roll with it. I would speech the sh*t out of a speech if it were pre-written. But that would make it a monologue of sorts, and then the name of the class would have to be changed to Monotone Theatre Excerpts Read from Note Cards. Which would make even the most enthusiastic dramatist want to kill themselves.

The only delicious tidbit in this class is that it’s 50% Louisville football players. If you think your life is dull, I would highly recommend enrolling with me. Recently, one young man delivered an informative speech about how Jordan brand clothing is more than just clothing. The Jordan Brand, he claimed, is a way of life. The entire speech went like this:

“ So, you know, it’s like about the respek, you know, like, when people see the Jordan symbol they, like, you know, KNOW, and it’s, like, about the pride, you know, it’s a pride thing, you know, so it be like more than that, you know, it’s a way of life….”

I thought, “Honey, your ‘way of life’ is headed straight down Are You Fucking Kidding Me Road to cashiering at the nearest Taco Bell. For my next demonstration-themed speech, I thought about bringing in a stack of Wal-Mart applications and doing a demonstration speech titled: How To Get A Head Start on Your Future.

But I didn’t.

I chose a lame topic on how to make guacamole. Because I am a heartless, upper-middle-class white woman who clearly does not know her audience. Immediately after posting this topic I thought, WHO CARES??? And then I realized: exactly. Who cares. So, I spent a treacherous fifteen minutes preparing an outlined speech and then another 3 HOURS fumbling over a five-slide power point. Seriously, I am to power point what a monkey is to fucking a football. Which also happened to be the closest to relating to my audience that I actually got.

So the day of my speech (yesterday), I got to work early to practice my speech, only to discover my power point missing. It wasn’t saved on my flash drive or my work computer… it simply vanished. So I did what any heartless, upper-middle-class white woman would do. I lost my cookies over it and CRIED. I cried like the world was over or like I had gotten my period. Whichever.

I cried and cried and cried.

“God…”, I thought, “…don’t I have enough things already that I couldn’t care less about?” Because I do. I have so much else to deal with, it’s like I was trying to function in life without the use of an entire arm, then giving up because I got a splinter in my toe. So I got back on the Playskool rocking horse, redid my power point, and went to class completely unrehearsed.

When I got there, a bunch of the football boys were already there. They are so young and surprisingly open and kind. They seem to respect me as an elder of sorts, but I’m pretty sure they’d still bang me. When I walked in, they immediately started high-fiving me and talking about the speeches, and I mentioned that I was unprepared and kind of overwhelmed. “We got your back, Miss Allison,” one said, followed by lots of You-da-bombs and You-be-like-a-teacher-so-you-show-us-what’s-up (because my real job is actually being a teacher and I do, in fact, know what’s up). The thing is, I show them respect. I am kind to them and I know all their names and I listen to their awful speeches. And just then I remembered: THEIR speeches are AWFUL.

So the lesson I learned yesterday was this: In a room full of idiots, I’m the least of my worries.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

I did my speech. I read straight from the note cards and sweated like a Danish Christian in Mecca. It was awful. Beyond awful.

They all cheered for me at the end.

I got an A+.

This, somehow, is my life 🙂

 

Too Much Is Enough.

So, I started a new job recently and so far it doesn’t suck. It helps that I am getting paid enough to be rich, which is a lie as I am not even getting paid enough at this point to be considered poor. According to my current tax bracket, I am qualifiably destitute; a situation befittingly contrasted by my wearing a $300 Diane von Furstenberg top to the office today. I own a top that cost more than I will make this entire week… which is all the evidence one needs to make a sound judgement about where my priorities in life have, until now, laid.

Today I walked into the break room and was talking to some other staff members. One of the girls was eating the type of little brittle round cookies you get at the grocery store, like Chips Ahoy or Bits Me Matey ( I made that up as an example of, and suggestion for the name of, an off-brand of Chips Ahoy) and she was spooning gobs of peanut butter on top and eating them. I found this delicious because I love cookies and I love peanut butter, yet repulsive because… well… I looked at her and her disgusting fatbody shoving oily goop atop the nutritional equivalent of polyester down her throat.

Not one to be judgmental (which is a lie because I am HUGELY judgmental of all things and people from a distance) I waved off this grotesquerie and went about my own business.

Later, I walked in to the break room to find that same girl spooning peanut butter, but not onto cookies this time… something much smaller. Pretending to fiddle with a more proximal task, I leaned in and took a glance to see what the proverbial cracker to this spread could be. I was shocked to find her reaching into a bag of trail mix. Now I’m no robust mountain hiker, but I’ve been to enough vending machines to know that trail mix is mainly, yes, PEANUTS. I looked at her hands to find her pincer-grasping a SINGLE PEANUT and proceeding to spread PEANUT BUTTER on top of it and eat it. I literally had to stop and take a moment to be confused with my entire body. I mean, really, you wouldn’t put a sweater on a sheep. Who does this? That’s not even just like putting a sweater on a sheep, that’s like putting a sweater on each individual strand of the sheep’s wool. This act could not be any nuttier if it occurred on the set of A Clockwork Orange (double pun intended). Straight up topsy-turvy.

This is the kind of woman that tells me humankind will not indefinitely survive.