How old do I look?!

   Sometimes life be crazy, but sometimes life just be MEAN!

   I stopped in at my bestie's new office this afternoon to surprise her, and I got the surprise. When I asked if she was there, they said she had worked a short day and was already gone. Then one of the gals at the counter asked, "Are you her mom?"
  "What the frankin' frank?! Do I look old enough to be her mother?!" ran through my head immediately -- thank God it didn't come blurting out of my mouth as well -- and I covered my shock (at least I hope so) with a laugh and a "No, I'm her bestie." Then I got the hell out of there. I even called Bestie and made a joke of it. But it so wasn't funny. 
   I felt like I'd taken a bullet to the gut. I sat in the car for a while and fought back tears. All I could think of was: how old do I really look to people? I wanted to crawl under a rock until I died and became worm food.
   In all fairness, my bestie is still in her thirties but appears much younger. And her mama is a lovely, very youthful looking woman. I shouldn't take offense at the comment, but dammit, I do. I mean, I moisturize religiously. I stay hydrated. I keep my roots freshened up. I put on eye shadow to give my eyes some sparkle and wear gloss to keep my lips plump and lush. I wear bling and funky clothes. I don't even own a pair of stretch pants or squishy-soled granny shoes. But I guess it doesn't matter. The jig, that I am old, is up.
   I am baffled by how to continue from here. Should I give up completely, quit working out and trying to eat healthy, save cash and stop coloring my hair, forget the funky outfits and go for comfy clothes all the way, and let mother nature have her way with me since people see me as old anyway? Should I take down the "SEXY" pendant from my rearview mirror and hang a "SAGGY" instead? Or is this a fight I should keep on fighting, doing whatever it takes to make me feel good about myself despite how other folks see me?
   This aging business is HARD and UGLY and MEAN! And I'm barely over the 50 mark. How much worse it's going to get, I don't want to know.
   If anyone is reading, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. And if you've had a similar situation, how did it make you feel? What did you do with those feelings?
   Even in my bafflement with this slap in the face (figurative, but it felt quite literal), I can tell you one thing: I won't be making any more surprise visits to Bestie's office! And if I do see that mom-comment co-worker of hers again, I may just get all sassy old-gal on her and tell her to "Kiss my saggy ass! I'm the bestie, not the mama!"     

Walmart

   Last night after a grueling shift at the library, I found myself sitting in the Walmart parking lot waiting for my sister and niece to buy back-to-school supplies (and groceries, which weren't mentioned when I was asked to take them, but nonetheless there were bags and bags of groceries as well). Why they waited until the night before school started to get supplies, I won't go into here (that's a family drama that would take up a whole other blog!), but I waited A LONG TIME while they were getting them. Instead of ruminating on my black funk thoughts of "this can't be my life" -- which I'd already done all night at work -- or focusing on the ever increasing rumble of my empty belly, I watched people. Um, people-watching at Walmart at ten o'clock at night. What might I see?
   I was expecting to see some of those "people of Walmart" from the internet pictures. You know the ones, the butt-crack people and the bad cross-dressers and the show-off-your-hooters ladies. Nope, didn't see anything like that. Maybe I was at the wrong Walmart. What I did see was a lady pushing three carts hooked together like a train using the child-protection seat belts. Each cart was loaded down with bags, yet she was pushing them like it weighed no more than a stroller. I could tell she's done this train thing A LOT. Whether her load was all groceries or a little something something from every department, I couldn't tell, but she must've spent a fortune to rack up that many bags.
   I watched a cart-pusher tote load after load of carts from the parking lot. That dude was amazing in how smoothly he maneuvered those carts! I always seem to get the one with the cock-eyed wheel that goes the opposite of the others and makes me run into things. People kept bringing him stray carts, which at first I thought was a nice gesture. Then it made me mad. People, I wanted to say, this man is hunkered down and dragging those carts with a strap across his shoulder like a donkey pulling a plow. Get off your lazy ass and push that stray cart into the store, since you're headed in there anyway, and give that man a break. But I didn't. I just sat there and watched, shaking my head.
   I don't know what was going on in that Walmart, but people were coming out laughing and carrying on like it was a party. Walmart is no party to me. I dread shopping there like the plague. I wander around and can't find the one thing I'm looking for, then I end up buying other crap I can't afford because of all the wandering. In fact, I've taken to shopping at the Walmart Neighborhood Markets if at all possible. I can get in and get out in a flash, especially if I use the self check-out, with no cashier chit chat or temptation to overspend. 
   Since I had SO MUCH TIME to kill, I also noticed the Walmart sign on the store, probably for the first time in years. What the hell happened to the hyphen? And when? Didn't it used to be Wal-Mart?? And what is up with that yellow sun-looking logo? I worked there for six months, cashiering and later in customer service (yes, the dreaded returns desk!), and I wanted to die every day. There was absolutely nothing sunny about Walmart. The one decent thing about working there was when my TV died and I got a 10% employee discount on buying a new one. Of course, they still got $400 of my hard-earned dollars in the deal. Even the discount wasn't enough "sunshine" to make me want to continue to work there. And what happened to their "Always low prices. Always" slogan? Did they give that up because they are so ginormous now that they figure people are going to shop there no matter what their prices are? Unfortunately, they are probably right.
   Finally, after a milk spillage in the cart which necessitated finding a new round of school supplies to replace the sopping ones, my sister and niece finished their shopping and I was able to go home, eat a sandwich, and fall into bed exhausted. I do not plan on seeing a Walmart again for some time. Except, damn, I used up all the bread for my sandwich. No way am I going back -- I'll go to Food 4 Less instead. They still have a slogan: "Our name says it. Our prices prove it."

NO THANKS, I'LL PASS

No thanks, I'll pass on passing out, that is. Have you heard about these folks that pass out on purpose? Auto-asphyxiation it's called, or erotic-asphyxiation if done during sex. From what I've read, the pass-out junkies put something over their faces or clamp off their windpipes until the sudden loss of oxygen creates an endorphin-release high and sense of giddiness. In the erotic version, the black-out process reportedly increases sexual pleasure and amps up the orgasm. Now I've passed out three times in my life – not during sex, though, I try to stay awake for that! – and all I ever got was perspiration, puke, and pee. And embarrassed. Maybe I wasn't doing it right. You be the judge.

Pass Out #1

   A hot September, definitely Indian summer, found me living back home in Missouri with my parents after leaving my first husband. In need of a job and place to live in a hurry – I love Mama and Daddy, I do, but not to live with! – I decided a spiffy new hairdo would boost my confidence and be a first step into my new solo life. I tracked down an old friend from high school who had become a super stylist, and she gave me the glam treatment: cut, mousse job, blow dry, curling ironing, and a final shellacking with hairspray that could withstand a wind tunnel. I looked fabulous!

   Before meeting Mama at her work at Montgomery Ward and then having lunch together at Orange Julius, I took my new “do” out to run errands, check out apartments, and give blood. That last item might seem like an odd thing to do, but since I had moved away I hadn't donated blood once and felt guilty. Word of caution: Be careful what you feel guilty about because it may rear up and bite you in the ass.

   Even though I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I got everything done and made it to the store even before Mama's lunch break. She parked me in an empty back office to wait for her. No problem, I can amuse myself and rest a bit. I plopped on a 1950s metal desk, dangled my legs, and hummed a Skynyrd tune so as not to hear my stomach growling. I had declined the offer of a post-donation snack to save my calories for lunch. The Red Cross had some fine snacks, too – Little Debbie Nutty Bars and Oatmeal Creme Pies, Goldfish crackers, orange drink that tastes just like Tang – what a dummy I was to skip all that.

   I grabbed a Ward's sales circular and began thumbing through to get my mind off food. Not a good distraction, though, too much reminder of the clearance-rack clothes Mama always bought that made me feel even more uncool than I already was in high school. I decided to head on down to Orange Julius and wait for her there.

   I jumped off the desk to go tell Mama my plan and WHOA NELLIE! The room started to spin and take me with it. My gut bottomed out, leaving me feeling hollow as a gourd inside. Intense heat radiated from my empty belly through my entire body. Sweat beads popped out like a dam burst, especially on my freshly-coiffed scalp. The store sounds turned muffled as if I had dove underwater. The last thing I heard was a dull thud as my forehead slammed into an Army-surplus steel filing cabinet, which was just my height. Wasn't that nice for it to “catch” me like that and save me from falling face down onto the concrete floor?

   Faces I didn't know were staring down at me when my eyes opened. A lady was fanning me with a summer catalog, another wiped my face with a damp paper towel. I wasn't sure where I was, but I was sure every piece of my clothing was stuck to whatever I was lying on like I had just showered fully dressed. The faces' mouths were moving, but my ears still weren't working right. I tried to unstick myself and get up when black splotches floated before my eyes and even more sweat poured out of me, a river of it ran down my scalp and pooled under my neck. I stayed put.

   After more fanning and dabbing and a couple sips of ice water brought to my lips by a grandmotherly gal, my ears cleared and the splotches stopped floating. 

   “Are you alright?” I heard from the water lady. “My goodness, we heard a racket of banging and crashing in the receiving office and found you keeled over flat on the floor. You must've hit your head hard, look at that welt coming up on your forehead. What in the world were you doing in there? And who in the world are you?”

   Making no sense of all those words, I croaked out Mama's name and somebody went to fetch her from major appliances. Without needing a mirror, seeing Mama's face told me “whatever happened was bad and I looked even worse.”

   Her face wasn't kidding. When I was finally able to extricate myself from the sweaty vinyl sofa in the ladies lounge, bathroom mirrors were everywhere. My fancy hairdo was plastered to my head in the back and on one side, shellacked now with hairspray and sweat, while the other side was still poofy and styled. I looked like both the “before” and “after” pictures in a makeover magazine. The filing cabinet impression on my forehead was plumping like a hot dog under the skin, quickly morphing from blood red to bruised plum. My eye makeup, which I took extra time with that morning to accent the new hairstyle, had run halfway down my face in a waterfall of sweat. And my clothes? They hung on me as if I'd put them on straight from the washing machine.

   Turns out you shouldn't run around all morning on a hot day and empty stomach, give blood, and then get up too fast. Not unless you want to pass out cold, ruin your “do,” and resemble a drowned rat. Not unless you like being carried to the ladies lounge by two burly warehouse dudes you don't even know, driven home by your daddy because you can't see straight, then fill your belly and crash for five hours before you feel like yourself again. Take my word for it.

Pass Out #2

   Trying to pack too many to-dos into too little time makes me crazy, but it's just my way. This day was no exception.

   I was scheduled to do a one-to-five shift at my receptionist gig at a day spa, then I would see two massage therapy clients of my own there afterward. That would shoot the afternoon and evening, but I could still cram more into my morning. After the household chores I deemed “necessary” – most likely laundry or grocery buying, I don't remember – I got in an hour of aerobics with a workout DVD and worked up a hellacious sweat. And appetite.

   Besides all that it was time to give blood again, and today was the day. The Community Blood Center's promo to kick off the summer donation drive was on its last day, and I wanted a free t-shirt. Bad. The caption read, “'Iguana' give blood. I did, I did give blood!,” surrounding dancing iguanas in fiesta-colored sombreros and serapes. Just my kind of funky casual wear. So, after a quick shower, I hauled ass to the CBC to donate. My heart must've been pumping like an oil derrick at warp speed, because I was done in record time. Having learned my lesson from the Monkey Ward's incident, I even sipped Tang and nibbled a few Goldfish crackers before leaving.

   Perfect. I still had time to grab a mini-bun tuna sandwich and Cheddar Sun Chips at Subway on the way to work. Perfect day as well, cloudless blue sky and low humidity, to have my lunch picnic-style on the stoop outside the spa's back door and soak up some sun.

   The tuna and chips were delish, at least what I tasted while scarfing them down and watching my watch. Still had time for a quick cigarette before work. Nothing like a smoke to settle my stomach after a meal, which was a bit jumpy from all the running around.

   If you're not a smoker, you wouldn't have experienced that having a cigarette after a couple of drinks (of the alcoholic variety) seems to intensify the buzz. It's true, light up and all of a sudden you feel more drunkety drunk. So I'm not sure if it was the effect of having a smoke, smoking too fast, eating too fast, or all of the above plus pumping out my blood sprint-style, but when I stood up to go into work it was WHOA NELLIE time again. Here came the popping sweat, racing heart, hollow gut, and underwater ears. This time I knew exactly what was happening. It didn't help. I plopped down on my butt hard on the stoop, and that's all I remember.

   Some time later, I do remember thinking I was dead. I heard soft, heavenly music when my ears woke up. Everything was dark except for a faint glow around me. I was lying on something cushy, cocooned by a blanket. This is my funeral, I am in a coffin popped into my head, even though I had expressly asked to be cremated. Then someone touched me on the shoulder. I sat up with a jolt and the room spins. I wasn't dead but wished I was. Especially after Sheila, the spa owner who had come to check on me, filled in the disgusting details I had been thankfully blacked out through.

   According to her, when I plopped down I must have keeled over sideways, my face coming to rest ever so UN-gently on the cement. Despite the crimson bull's-eye on my cheek, this was really quite fortunate as I then upchucked my picnic all over the stoop. Had I passed out on my back, I might have drowned, or if I had slumped forward, I certainly would have soiled my outfit. So it could have been worse.

   When I wasn't at my desk at one o'clock, Sheila came looking for me in my usual smoking spot and found me when the back door hit my inert body. She and another massage therapist helped me to a therapy room – she claimed I was walking but that was news to me – put me on the massage table, lit some candles, covered me up because I was drenched in sweat, and let me sleep it off.

   I'm proud to say I did manage to finish the last two hours of my shift after my doze, even with hair that looked like a cow had lick-styled it and smelling of eau de sweat. Luckily, there is dim lighting for ambiance in the reception area so maybe none of the clients noticed my “hair-don't,” and I kept a candle burning on my desk to squelch my stench. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't have enough mojo to massage my clients and I bailed on them. And I'm ashamed to say I did not thank the person who policed up my puke. I didn't even ask who did it; I just couldn't. But the next time I had a stoop smoke the evidence was gone, leaving only a whiff of tainted tuna in the sweltering summer air to remind me of the picnic-upchuck pass-out.

Pass Out #3

   My blood-giving days are over. No, I wasn't banned for being an idiot and passing out twice, although I probably should have been since my post-donation dramas, while amusing (now), don't bode well for enticing new donors. Now I would still love to be able to offer my blood, but I am considered a “permanent deferral” due to a diagnosis I was given when a doctor was trying to rule out my having tuberculosis. Damn doctors don't know how to mind their own business. I don't have TB, never did have. I don't consider myself to have the diagnosed ailment either. But still I was honest in my disclosure, therefore the ban stands. So now I donate plasma. And get paid for it. I guess honesty does pay off in the long run.

   I've got this plasma-donation routine down too. My appointments are scheduled for my days off or after work, that way I'm not overtaxing my body. I take a quickie nap afterward, leaving me feeling refreshed and not drained the rest of the day. Plus, I amp up my hydration and protein on plasma days, two key components of a successful donation. Over a decade had passed since my last pass-out, and I'd never had an issue with donating plasma until . . . I monkeyed with the routine.

   Why I did things differently, I don't recall. Probably a case of post-plasma pass-out amnesia impeding my memory. Instead of sleeping in that day, I got up early and rushed around working out and writing. Instead of having my protein smoothie just before leaving to donate, I drank it right after I woke up and ate nothing else. Despite feeling a might hungry and tired, my donation went fine. I was feeling so fine, that I had a quickie smoke on the way home even though they recommend waiting an hour afterward. No problem, I thought, I have this down pat.

   I thought wrong. Getting up out of my car when I got home, the woozies set in. DMan came into the kitchen to greet me, and his sturdy hug settled me down. I just need to eat something, I told myself, and I'll be all better. Wrong again. I slapped chunky peanut butter on a slice of bread and nibbled it over the sink. My knees buckled after three bites, and I grabbed the sink. The sound of DMan's noon news from the TV started fading in my ears. After a fast flash of heat, sweat started to pour despite my being chilled from the donation-ending flush of saline and frigid temperature outside. I was right about this – I was going down.

   But I didn't hit the ground, that was a good thing. Otherwise DMan would have heard the thud, come running, and witnessed the unfolding spectacle. No, my body jackknifed into the sink, my feet barely touching the floor while my forehead came to rest on the plastic mat on the garbage disposal side. Somehow my mind was working enough to say, “Chew, chew. Don't swallow or you'll choke.” I kept chewing in sloooow motion, the wad of doughy peanut butter swelling more in my mouth with every chew. Then I felt another flash of warmth, this time down my thighs. My bladder had blacked out as well, and I was powerless to stop the trickle of pee saturating my jeans. When things go wrong for me, they go WAY wrong. But at least my bowels didn't buckle like my knees and bladder.

   I have no idea how long I was “inSinkerated.” My ears waking up are always my sign that I'm coming to, and eventually I could hear DMan laughing at “The Andy Griffith Show” that comes on after the news. Thank God, he doesn't know I keeled over into the sink. I slowly un-jackknifed myself, the half-eaten sandwich still in my fist, my back stiff from being bent over. The chaw of peanut butter had grown to the size of a lime – but I hadn't swallowed! I tried to spit, then flick it out with my tongue. Nothing happened. It was stuck. Finally I had to rake two fingers along the inside of my cheek to extricate the gluey glob. My jeans had trapped the tinkle so I wasn't standing in a puddle, but by now the wetness was cold. Shivery cold.

   As quietly as I could with soaked pant legs rubbing together, I slipped through the sitting room and into the bathroom. DMan didn't notice, still engrossed in Mayberry antics in the living room. Dear Lord, I was a fright: hair plastered with sweat back from my face, showcasing a red checker-boarded forehead the spitting image of the sink mat; mascara smeared into raccoon eyes; sweat rings surrounding my armpits; and a dark rainbow of urine on my jeans from crotch to calf. After cleaning myself up and hosing down my pants in the shower, I took a long nap, more like a mini-coma, and vowed never to monkey with my plasma routine again. Never.

   So now you understand why I say, “No thanks, I'll pass on passing out.” I don't know about those “asphyxionados,” but I never had a bit of fun doing it. No endorphin high. No giddiness. And I sure as hell never got an orgasm out of the deal.   

TIT FOR TAT

When you think about it, life is a tangle of trade-offs, a karmic tit for tat that is paid with every choice we make. While I try not to think about my trade-offs too much – dwelling on them only makes them seem worse – lately I can't escape them. Maybe it's because the older I get the clearer I see that my life has been shaped by the trade-offs I've made and, as my gal pal Carrie Bradshaw would say, I couldn't help but wonder if I made good trades.

   Two years ago I left my full-time workaday “normal” life and skedaddled to the beach to be a writer. These dreams, of being a beach babe and writing, had been festering under the surface for years until they finally spewed over and I made them my reality. I loved that life: walking the beach and having things to write about hit me like seagull plop; being nurtured by Mother Ocean when I felt lonely; my days bookmarked by coffee sunrises and wine sunsets, flowing in between with the rhythm of the tide; the wild swings of weather and writer mojo. And I hated it too. The disappointment of winter finding me even at the beach and the sting of receiving rejections, or worse yet no response at all, to all my writer efforts sapped my spirit of the joy of living my dreams. Even though I lived a modest beach existence, the teeny cash cushion I had from my recent divorce dwindled into the danger zone, my lottery tickets were all losers, and my writing cost money in contest entry fees and postage for submissions while never earning a dime. I had shot my financial wad. Plus I missed my sweetie DMan. It was time to give up the beach babe dream and go home.

   So here I am once again living in land-locked Missouri. Sure, there are lakes close enough that I can be near the water, find some peace in the splish splash of ripples hitting the shore from time to time. But visiting a lake can never match the mighty roll of Mother Ocean's waves, the serenity of soft warm sand on bare feet, the cooling of the beach breeze while the sun melts like butter on my skin.

   Good trade or not? Was I right to go and experience my dream life even if only for a short time, store up memories, and short-circuit the regret of never having tried? Or would I be better off to have never lived the beach life, never realized how perfectly it fit me and that I felt home finally, and never be missing it all the more now because it was my existence, my reality?

   I let go of the beach life so I wouldn't be homeless and starve, but I couldn't give up being a writer. There is a scene I love in the movie “Thelma and Louise” when the ladies are contemplating giving up running and Thelma says, “It's like something's crossed over in me and I can't go back, you know? I just couldn't live.” Yes, I do know. I couldn't fathom going back to the spirit-sucking eight-to-five grind and not having any time or mental mojo left to write. So I took a part-time job at the library, at first shelving books and later checking them in and out. The work doesn't pay much and offers no benefits. My body feels rode hard and put up wet by the time my eight-hour shift ends – despite what folks may think, library work ain't for wussies; it's a full-body workout of bending, squatting, lifting, pushing heavy carts and walking – but when I clock out, I'm done. No work or worries to take home that would interfere with my creativity.

   Sounds pretty great, huh? It is. And it isn't. Fear gets a grip on me every time I have an unexplainable pain, every time my allergies flare up and I'm headed for asthmatic bronchitis again no matter what I do. I have no insurance, no extra cash to pay for a doctor. So I worry, concoct my own over-the-counter cocktail of remedies, and hope that someone in my family ends up with bronchitis, too, so I can bum an inhaler and breathe again. Even though I know it's coming, my gut clenches when my car insurance bill arrives in the mail, my oil needs changing, or my brakes need work. Some other bill (or food or my OTC arsenal) will have to wait in order to cover the extra expenses. No car = no getting to work = no money, period. My life buddy DMan would help me out financially in a heart beat if I was in dire straits, a blessing many in my situation don't have. But I already feel like Freida Freeloader, relying on him to cover the majority of our rent and household expenses. For an independent woman like myself, that's a choking chunk of pride to swallow without asking for even more help. The faint light at the bottom of the poor-me pit is the MegaMillions lottery ticket I buy twice a week. I kiss it, tuck it under the hot pink Myrtle Beach magnet on the fridge, and say a little prayer: Come on, Baby, be a winner. Roni needs to go to the dentist; Roni needs a mammogram.

   Good trade or not? Is the freedom of part-time not-all-consuming work, which allows me the time and energy to write, worth the constant fear of what-ifs that I can't afford or control?

   Speaking of work trade-offs, I have a friend who has worked in the insurance industry for 30-plus years. The job is demanding, but he gets paid well, gets to travel and enjoy perks like a company car. He is very good at his work and seems to like it fine most days. Yet my friend cannot wait to retire and counts down the weeks even though several years remain. He's not pining for the big pension checks or free time though. He can't wait to smoke pot again. Yes, you read it right. His retirement nirvana is to be free of drug tests and fire up a big old joint any time he wants. Now I have never been a big pot fan (if you've read “Who The Hell Am I?” already, you'll understand why), but it seems sad to me to devote all your working life to a job which requires you deny yourself something you enjoy so much that you can't wait to retire to be able to enjoy it again. That is one whopper of a sentence but it nutshells one whopper of a tit for tat!

   Instead of feeling sad for him, though, I imagine the huge grin on his face as he fires up his first post-retirement Cheech-and-Chong-worthy doobie and inhales deeply. What I can't imagine is how he will score some pot after being out of the “scene” for 30 years. Will I spot him hanging around outside a middle school looking like a grandpa while he's trying to spot the “heads” with a dime bag to sell? (Which is probably 50 bucks now, considering inflation.) Will he be googling old partying pals to see if they are still alive and, if so, do they still have pot or connections? Or maybe I should look more closely at the “herb” garden he's been cultivating all these years. There may be way more than parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme in there. No matter how he gets his dream doobie, I hope the trade was worth it and the high is the best of his life.

   If I thought giving in or giving up dreams made for tough trade-offs, that is nothing compared to the minefield of tit for tat in intimate relationships. Could this be the reason break-ups and divorces get so explosive? You make what you think are good trades for the sake of love, then when the relationship goes bad you're resentful as hell and feel like a sucker. You want back what you traded, but there are no takesies-backsies in break-up-land.

   I'm reminded of a scene from “Sex And The City – The Movie” when the ladies are lamenting about their men troubles after Carrie got jilted by Big at the alter. Samantha Jones, the original I-only-want-men-for-sex Ms. Independent who had now been in a five-year relationship with hubba hubba Smith Jerrod, opens up to the gals:

“As long as we're going down this road, I can't believe my life revolves around a man. On what planet did I allow that to happen?”

Sweet Charlotte, who believes in love at any cost, says, “But you love him.”

Samantha continues, “Does that mean saying his name 50 times more a day than I say my own? Does it mean worrying about him and his needs before me and mine? Is it all about the other person? Is that love?”

   Now, besides being the girlfriend, Samantha is also superstar actor Smith's PR person, so that brings a whole new tangle to their relationship tango, but she makes valid points. It's those little everyday “tits” that can stick in your craw and go sour. Like always saying “he” or “we” instead of “me.” Like making sure he has 2% milk for his coffee because he won't drink your soy milk. Like yawning every other breath through “Jay Leno” – who you find so NOT funny – even though you're dog tired because he likes to stay up late and fall asleep together while you much prefer falling asleep when you are sleepy, even if alone. Like making yourself watch golf or baseball or Nascar on TV yet again – and being bored out of your gourd yet again – in order to spend time with your man while a fabulous book you're dying to read lies unopened on the coffee table right in front of you. On the flip side, my sweetie DMan has silently suffered through several viewings of “Sex And The City – The Movie” and listened patiently as I pointed out my favorite scenes (what scene isn't my favorite?!) and quoted the dialogue out loud when I know he'd rather be watching golf, baseball, or Nascar. Even The Weather Channel. Anything but “SATC.” And those trade-offs are nothing compared to what he puts up with when I fall into one of my black funk depressions! I've often thought the man must be a saint. Or sometimes I think there's some deep, dark karmic debt he's paying off by being with me. That makes me feel better about being such a pain in the patootie to live with.

   Back to the issue of living together: what about giving up soloness for togetherness? For some folks, that would be a dream come true. For me, it's another tit for tat. DMan and I often pined for those extraordinary ordinary shared moments that you miss when you live apart: a spontaneous dance while we clean house together listening to 70s tunes; seeing a cardinal land on a snowy branch outside the kitchen window as we unload the dishwasher on a dreary day; a giggle-fest and water fight erupting while we wash our cars side by side in the driveway. So we moved in together. And now we enjoy tons of shared moments, but besides those moments, work, the news, weather and “what kind of wine shall we drink tonight?,” we don't have much to talk about. I miss that “I can't wait to see him to tell him something that happened” feeling. I miss craving him. I miss getting that jolt of tingles when he pulled in my driveway because I knew in a minute he'd have his big hot hands all over me. I miss the urgency, the intensity that comes from missing him.

   If piddly things like these stick in your craw and go sour, the big things can eat at your craw like battery acid until eventually they devour you completely. Big things like moving somewhere you don't want to live, making a home in a place that doesn't feel anything like home so he can take a promotion. Important things like having kids because that's what couples are supposed to do, then finding that your whole life together revolves around the kids' lives and, besides braces and soccer games, you have absolutely nothing to say to each other. Monumental things like leaving your career to be a mom and wondering when your oldest graduates high school whether you'd have made vice-president by now, or finally getting the huge partner office with a spectacular view and your gut aches when you have nothing to hang on the wall but diplomas and certificates. Those are some big tits to have to live with, no matter how good the tats seem.

   But the ultimate in trade-offs comes with death. Or life, and the choices between the two. Because Mama and I are what she calls “prayer warriors,” always exchanging names of folks in need of prayer, I am constantly bombarded with details about these folks' serious health problems, surgeries, treatment regimens, and prognoses. The ones that get me the worst have cancer. What kind of choices are they given?

   Should they choose to fight and, in doing so, mangle their body with surgery, poison their cells with chemo, and burn their flesh with radiation; accepting indiginities and suffering as part of the battle in the hope they can beat the cancer and win? For how long? At what cost?

   Or should they surrender to the havoc of cells gone crazy, to an unknown path that may meander through pit stops of organ failure, bloating, wasting, suffocating, and dementia; accepting indiginities and suffering as a condition of armistice with the Big-C in the hope that it will miraculously retreat or mercifully kill them quick. How long will they wait to know their fate? At what cost?

   In my mind, there is no question of choice. I've pondered long and hard over the years about what I would do if I got a cancer diagnosis – either a natural side-effect of praying for so many with cancer or I am one just morbid chick with too much time to think – and, unless the invader is something small and easily removed, I will surrender. Screw surgery. Screw treatments. Whatever time and health I have left will be spent laughing and celebrating with my special peeps; playing disco music too loud and dancing until I collapse satisfied; eating, drinking and smoking to my heart's content; and spending every last buck I've got to scratch off every last want-to-do from my bucket list. Since life for death is the final trade-off, I'm going to be sure I make every trade I have left a good one and hopefully make peace with the not-so-good trades I've already made along the way.

   My terminal tit for tat. Hope I get it right. Or better yet, hope I get hit by a big-ass bus and . . . SPLAT! Just like that, the end of me and tit for tat.

(P.S. I don't know what happened with the type changing sizes; it was not intentional and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Sorry!)

You never know what you'll see

   I was waiting to meet a friend yesterday and, as is my nature, getting impatient because he was running late. Drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, I look up and see Leo and Max. Have you heard about them? Leo is an older gentleman, wearing long hair and past-their-prime clothes, that rides a beat-up bike laden with all he owns (I'm guessing) and his shaggy brown dog Max riding in a basket on the back. You can't miss them with the American flag waving from the back of the bike and a sign that says "Leo and Max Across America."  I'd had seen them about a week ago in the same area -- near the Wal-Mart on Independence in Springfield -- on a day when we were expecting severe storms, and I'd been worried about them ever since. If my friend had been on time, I would never have seen them again and known they made it through the storms and were doing fine.
   Finally my friend made it to town but went to the wrong McDonald's. Rather than make him drive farther in unfamiliar surroundings, I went to him. Right there in the drive-up line at the other McDonald's was a burgundy car with the hood made entirely of DUCT TAPE. I swear, I'm not kidding. If there WAS an actual hood under the tape, I couldn't see it. The pieces of tape were intricately woven together covering the entire engine, as if the "hood's" construction had been building over a long time. I nearly ran into a car backing out from staring at the duct-tape mobile so intently. I just hope they don't have to lift the "hood" to check their oil or replace their windshield fluid any time soon.
   My lesson in all this was: pay attention even if things aren't happening just like you want them to. You never know what you'll see.
   By the way, I found a Facebook page for Leo and Max in case you want to know more.  Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leo-Max-Across-America/367253580894
   Have a fabulous day, Yall!  

True Purpose

   I've felt like a failure for most of my life. Since I was a kid, I thought I had this big purpose, that I was going to do something super special in my life. And I never did. Oh, I've done a lot of things -- been a massage therapist, managed a retail store, done administrative assistant work a bunch, worked at the library, been a social worker, even wrote two books -- and I didn't totally suck at any of them. But none of the things I've done seemed big or special, hence my recurring feeling that my existence was a waste of the planet's oxygen.
   Then last night my bestie Sara and I were sipping cocktails and having a chick chat. Since we've both struggled at times with this "purpose" issue, she shared an epiphany she had recently. She said (and I'm paraphrasing here, I wasn't in any state to actually write it down word for word):

Maybe we don't have some big purpose, like a job or something we'll do. Maybe we are making ourselves nuts for thinking that. Maybe it's just who we ARE that is our purpose. Like you, totally changing DMan's life by introducing him to so many things and ideas and adventures he never would have had without you. And for your mom, you being there as her confidant every day so she doesn't have to carry all the troubles of your family alone. And you make me laugh, especially when I need it so bad. And me, for the way I keep my mom from going crazy over all the things my dad does. And for how our dogs go wild when I come home, like they just couldn't wait for me to be back. And how I got you into "Sex And The City" and now you like fashion and even watch "The Fashion Police." Maybe we don't have to DO anything, just be ourselves and that's enough.

   I loved it! If what she said is true, then I haven't been a failure all along because I do try to be myself, even when myself is crrr-azy. Then today I was reading "Love For No Reason" by Marci Shimoff (love it, too! -- look for a review on bookcrrr-azygal.blogspot soon) about a man named Johnny Barnes in Hamilton, Bermuda. Well into his eighties, Mr. Barnes stands for six hours at a roundabout intersection waving at people, calling out "Good Morning!" and "Have a good day!" and "God bless you!" with a huge smile for everyone. He started doing this in the 1940s every morning before work, then upped his time 30 years ago when he retired. People drive the roundabout just to see Johnny every day. The city even erected a statue of him on the opposite side of the intersection so no one would miss his smile or wave. Mr. Barnes said, "When the good Lord wakes me up mornings, puts a song in my heart, joy in my soul, and a smile on my face, I just have to give it away." Now that is sharing the best of himself with the world!
   I doubt that I'll never feel like a failure again. It comes too easily for me. But I'm hoping that this new idea of true purpose that Sara turned me on to will help me relax a little about the "big" thing I'm not doing so I can enjoy just "being" a whole lot more.
   What's your idea of true purpose? I'd love your feedback!   

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas . . .

. . . but wait, isn't it almost Memorial Day? Yup, but it's been snowing, sleeting and raining -- and sometimes all at the same time -- all day long. And it's snowing harder now than before, covering the freshly mowed grass. The new leaves on the trees and rose bushes are starting to get weighted down. I'm hoping the limbs don't break. Hasn't been over 35 degrees all day. On May 3rd! Anyone that doesn't believe in climate change should come to Missouri.
   Look out Kentucky Derby, this mess is headed your way. I've heard of horses being mudders, but are their snowers?? If the racing form calls one of the entrants a snower, I'd bet all my money on that horse to win!