tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27220883845957659132024-03-13T14:37:09.843-04:00Southern Fried ChildrenKellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.comBlogger385125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-80660619820802040852023-10-10T19:53:00.013-04:002023-10-10T19:56:50.718-04:00Squirrel.<p>There are too many squirrels. </p><p> </p><p>Our backyard is ringed by big gray oaks and the squirrels jump from limb to limb. They scurry up trunks and frantically dart from tree to tree, gathering acorns and stuffing them in hidey-holes around the mossy bases. Yesterday, I watched as two squirrels collided as they met each other midway up an oak. One going up, one going down, too consumed by their tasks to notice the other. The going-up squirrel was knocked off the tree by going-down squirrel and lay stunned, briefly, on a bed of pokeweed. </p><p> </p><p>I imagined he was looking up at going-down squirrel and thinking, <i>what the hell</i>? He was likely thinking nothing but nuts. I stopped keeping birdseed in the feeders after watching the squirrels eat it all. I bought a BB gun with the intent of shooting squirrels who disturbed the feeders but quickly discovered that I do not have the heart to shoot a squirrel, or the desire to remove a dead squirrel from my yard. </p><p><br /></p><p>Sometimes, the tree squirrels are so noisy that I think it must be some larger, more formidable animal lurking in the woods. A possum, maybe, or the family of deer that tiptoe through twice a day. One time, I saw a gray fox lope through the woods, on the hunt for a rabbit. I worry about the fox and the hawk that nests in the oak. I worry that they will see my juicy little dog who looks like a fine snack. I worry that they will try to snatch him only to drop him when they realize that he is too fat to carry far. </p><p> </p><p>Our house sits in the middle of a long road that makes a lazy six mile U. Three miles to the right and it hits the bigger road where there's a Chick-Fil-A and a traffic light and a grocery store. Three miles to the left and it connects a quieter stretch of the same road. If I leave our house and turn left, I can get where I need to go without acknowledging the existence of Chick-Fil-A and traffic lights. Either way, the road is littered with squirrel. </p><p> </p><p>One day, I had to swerve into the other lane to avoid what I could only describe as a squirrel massacre. It was if an entire squirrel family, perhaps on their way to my oaks for a picnic, was hit en masse while crossing the road. I imagine a tiny squirrel police officer standing over the scene, his little police hat held under a chubby arm. <i>They never saw it coming,</i> he says. <i>That's the mercy in it. </i></p><p><i> </i></p><p>By some miracle<i> </i>or just good dumb luck, I've<i> </i>never hit a squirrel. I've come close dozens of times - gripping the wheel and holding my breath and occasionally letting out an<i> ah-ah-ah! </i>Sometimes, I think I've surely hit one. I am so certain that I can imagine the<i> thwap-whump </i>of the squirrel under my tire and up against the wheel well. I search the rearview mirror frantically for a body, but it's never there. Twice, I've stopped to look and make sure that there's not a squirrel stuck under my car. Once, I walked back along the road nearly a quarter of a mile, searching. </p><p> </p><p>What would I have done if I'd actually found a dead or half-dead squirrel? Loaded it in my car and rushed it to the vet at the busy end of the U shaped road? Buried it? Cried over and said prayers that squirrels go to heaven (where, no doubt, there are too many squirrels)? Performed tiny squirrel CPR? Or just stood over it and felt awful and gone home and posted about it on Facebook? Probably that. </p><p> </p><p>I have become so obsessed with the idea - the fear - that I am going to hit a squirrel that I almost want it to happen. I scan the road for movement and hold my breath as they dart across. Occasionally, one will make it halfway and freeze. There is the briefest of moments when our eyes lock and I can see him deciding <i>which way which way</i> and in my own head I am thinking <i>which way which way.</i> Am I turning the steering wheel to avoid him, or to hit him and face my squirrel killer destiny? </p><p> </p><p>It is the waiting for the inevitable that I find so difficult. </p><p>It is the seeing it coming and not knowing when. </p><p>It is the <i>knowing </i>and <i>not knowing</i>. </p><p>It is the remembering that there are too many squirrels, anyway.<br /></p><p> </p><p><i> </i><br /></p>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-86777503839893769122020-10-12T21:32:00.001-04:002020-10-12T21:32:30.987-04:00Everything Sucked, and Then Somebody Died<p> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Everything sucked, and then
somebody went and died. As if things weren’t bad enough already, on top of the
virus and riots and elections and virtual schooling and working from home, somebody
went and died. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I should stop right there and
capitalize Virus. Because it is a capital, isn’t it? A capital pain in the ass.
You know what you can’t do during The Virus (article added for emphasis)? Have
a big funeral for someone amazing and loved and missed. Somebody who went and
died. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">What you <i>can</i> do, what you <i>do</i>,
is sit around feeling empty and incomplete. Like you walked out of the house
without pants on or maybe you forgot to turn off the stove. But you are so numb
you say fuck it, I’ll walk around without pants on, or let the house burn down.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Everyone wants to ask you if the
person died from The Virus and you want to remind them that people die from
things other than viruses. People keep on dying from cancer and heart attacks and
strokes. People choke on chicken bones and get hit by buses. People die when
they’re old and when they’re young, when they don’t deserve it, because of hate
and fear and violence and dumb damned luck. It doesn’t matter how, it never
matters how, but we want to assign reason so it seems real. Because by naming
it we can explain this process and our feelings and see that one day, we won’t
feel like there’s an elephant sitting on our chest. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Remember back before The Virus when
somebody went and died and you could just be consumed with your own personal
grief? When you didn’t have to walk around feeling discounted because you’re
just really fucking sad? What about the people who’ve lost their job or
business or are essential workers AND somebody they love went and died? What do
we give to the winners of the Grief Olympics? Vaccines? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your pain
and your loss and the fact that you can’t be surrounded by people who loved the
person you loved. I’m sorry you can’t have a funeral feast because tater tot casserole
is a balm unto the soul. I’m sorry the world keeps turning when we really could
stand for it to just stop a minute so we can catch our collective breath. I’m
sorry somebody went and died. </p>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-28699327612498566132015-11-21T09:03:00.000-05:002015-11-21T09:04:05.991-05:00June, Three<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">When she arrived home on this afternoon, all was quiet at the Peterson’s. The dog saw her coming up the sidewalk, and she barely got the door open before he was on her. “Hello, Sampson! Hello, my sweet boy!” Sampson was all of twelve pounds, a silky black pekingese that June had rescued from the shelter five years before. He had been the runt of the litter, clumsy and sweet with a prominent underbite and chronic gas. He was, next to Owen, June’s best friend. </span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-a1912e91-2a5b-b62c-54d1-c08ebea85914"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Can you believe it, Sampson? Can you believe they didn’t have any Miracle Whip?” She was resigned to it now, but had every confidence the situation would be rectified before she had to make her first turkey and dressing sandwich the day after Thanksgiving. She knew the folks in town thought she was terribly ill tempered, but if she didn’t keep them in line, who would? The Mrs. Right Reverend Spurgeon Swicegood, in between quaffing her booze and throwing it back up? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She wanted more than anything to sit in her chair with Sampson on her lap and watch that lovely young woman from near the coast on PBS. The young woman was always visiting farmers and buying fresh food like June had eaten when she was young - turnips and runups and sweet potatoes, pigs just butchered and rabbit just caught - and taking it into her kitchen and making things June could only imagine in her wildest dreams. “Lordy,” she’d say to Sampson as they watched, “Who would have even thought of that?” But Thanksgiving was thirty-nine hours away, and June had to get into her own kitchen today. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She peeled onions and washed the celery, rough thumbs rubbing grit from the stalks. She sliced thin skin ribbons from the carrots, then chopped everything fine and cooked it soft in a mound of butter in her cast iron skillet. June broke apart pans of cornbread and diced cubes of crusty bread and put it all in the giant crockery bowl that had been her grandmother’s. She added bits of good sausage and an apple to the vegetables, and when the smell was just right - sweet and spicy and warm - she added them all to the crock. Fresh chicken stock and liberal amounts of salt and pepper, and then the sage. She rolled the leaves tightly and sliced carefully, and was taken back to her grandmother’s kitchen by the scent. Sage was fall and leaves and fireside and family and Thanksgiving, all rolled into one. She added a handful to the bowl and, after a brief consideration, another one for good measure. She covered the bowl and put it in the icebox, where it would wait patiently to become dressing. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She had just turned her attention to pies when she heard the knock at the door. It was a grim faced Blue, gripping a measuring cup like it was going to run away from her. “Well,” said June, “Are you delivering a terrible message, or does your Mama just need some sugar?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sugar,” Blue replied. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Come on in, then. ” June turned sideways and let Blue slip past her. Blue had never been inside the house but it was, mostly, as she imagined it would be. Very neat, very outdated, and very, very full. From the oversized furniture to the countless knick knacks to the family pictures on the walls, there was hardly an inch of the house that had not been decorated. It smelled like cinnamon and apples and something deep and woodsy that Blue couldn’t name. The whole house was like a big, warm blanket that Blue wanted to wrap up in, forever. If only June wasn’t there. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June watched the girl stand in the middle of the living room, staring openly at everything around her. She was suddenly aware of the threadbare carpet and the shabby furniture, of all bits and pieces of her parents she’d kept after they’d died. She felt old and frumpy in the presence of this young person, with her blue hair and black lips and skin you could bounce a quarter off of. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sugar,” June echoed, and shooed Blue into the kitchen. “I know I have sugar.” Blue stopped short in the doorway, and pointed to a row of jars on the kitchen table. “Is that...cranberry sauce?” She was nearly breathless, and sounded so comical that June almost laughed, until she realized the girl was completely serious. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes, I make a pile of it every Thanksgiving and Christmas as gifts for my family,” she said. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Can I...can I just taste it?” Blue said, and June was so taken by the innocence of the request that she moved immediately for a spoon. When Blue put the spoon to her mouth, she made a face like someone remembering a memory they didn’t know they had. “It tastes like Christmas!” she said, and June did laugh this time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Honey, have you never had cranberry sauce?” she asked, incredulous. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My mother doesn’t like it, so she’s never let me try. She thinks it’s gross.” Blue raised and eyebrow and when June laughed again, she decided to push it a little farther. “Can you believe that shit?” With that, June doubled over with a giant guffaw that shook her whole body and turned her face red. Blue started laughing, too, and when they finally stopped, June wiped her eyes with her apron and turned serious. </span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Young lady,” she asked, “Has your mama taught you how to cook?”</span></span></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-8429701331486257362015-11-20T08:45:00.002-05:002015-11-20T08:53:44.400-05:00June, Two<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“GOOD GOD, Sarah Jane. Get your nose out of your damned Bible and watch where you’re going!” Sarah Jane had not, in fact, been reading her Bible, but couldn’t decide whether she felt insulted that June had spoken to her so sharply, or guilty for not reading her Bible while walking down the sidewalk. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-a1912e91-252b-ec3d-9806-bf70ff0bf2ec" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hello, Miss June,” Sarah Jane enunciated “miss” like it was an affront that any woman over 30 should have never married. “I suppose you’re out shopping for your famous Thanksgiving feast.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am,” replied June, waiting for the other shoe to drop. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Of course, the Reverend and I will be serving our usual meal to the less fortunates in town on Thanksgiving Day.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June’s eyes rolled up so far in her head she swore she could see her brains. She knew two things about Sarah Jane and the Right Reverend Spurgeon Swicegood: One, they both had terrible taste as they were married to each other and two, after serving a modest meal of Stove Top Stuffing, dry as ass turkey slices, and stale rolls to the “less fortunate”, those two jokers high tailed it up to the country club dining room where they ate like pigs and drank two bottles of pinot grigio. June’s niece, who was a waitress at the country club, saw Sarah Jane throw up in her wine glass one Thanksgiving and then blame it on ‘suspect cranberry sauce’. In her wine glass! </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Too bad you ain’t invited to my house,” June mumbled and pounded down the sidewalk. Ten paces away, she felt especially evil and called over her shoulder, “Watch out for the cranberry sauce!”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June’s house was situated on a corner lot, where the business end of town met the living end of town. It was a neat house, built with care in the 1937 by her father’s own hand. June kept the lawn mowed and planted pansies in spring, petunias in summer, and mums in the fall. She painted the clapboard siding every seven years and replaced the roof every twelve, whether it needed it or not. She had a solid heating and air man, a reliable plumber, an honest electrician, and a handyman who would fill in when the others couldn’t. She was a firm believer in the importance of regularly scheduled maintenance, and kept marble covered composition books filled with notes on the upkeep of the house. Only once, when faced with a sudden termite infestation, had she panicked. Since then, she employed a man known around town as Leon the Bug Guy. Leon chain smoked Camel cigarettes and carried an arsenal of chemicals in the back of his lime green pick up truck. She hadn’t had a problem with bugs since. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Across the street to the left was the drug store, and June could sit on her porch and watch the teenage boys share a single cigarette like it was gold. On Tuesday afternoons, she’d watch Lucy Harper pick up her birth control pills wearing a ridiculous sunhat and movie star sunglasses, like everyone in town didn’t know it was her. Directly in front of June’s house sat a blessedly empty lot. A few years ago, a group of folks had tried to start a community garden, but no one wanted to tend the plants they’d planted. June did her part to keep it up, but before long it became overgrown and forgotten, squash and tomatoes dripping from vines and rotting on the ground. It made June boiling mad for a solid three months, until the frost hit and leaves fell and covered it all. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Behind her house was a fallow field that stretched almost further than you could see, until it gave way to scrubby pines that leaned into one another in the sandy soil. To the right lived her one true neighbor and source of great consternation, Joanna Peterson. Joanna lived with her six dogs, four cats, the occasional boyfriend, and her 16 year old daughter, a perpetually sullen, raven haired girl called Blue. While Joanna never missed an opportunity to speak to June (“Juney!” she’d call from her ramshackle porch, “Isn’t this just a magnificent morning?”), Blue had only spoken once. It had been late at night the summer before, and June had woken with a start, drenched in sweat. She walked out into the back yard in a futile attempt to escape the furnace inside of her and seen Blue and a group of half a dozen teenagers huddled in a circle, passing a small object around. She watched them put it to their mouths and saw the glowing ember and realized with a shock that they were smoking marijuana. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blue looked up and saw her standing there. The girl’s face registered surprise, then shame and embarrassment. She half smiled and raised her hand as if to wave, and that’s when the boy standing next to her noticed June. “Hey Blue, should we ask your friend to the party?” The group laughed and Blue’s face turned hard. Her wave turned into fist from which she extended one pale, middle finger. “Screw you, old lady!” she yelled, and they erupted into cheers. For perhaps the first time in her life, June had nothing to say. After she went inside, she laid in bed for a good long while, staring at the ceiling and wondering if she had been that angry when she was a teenager. </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She felt certain she had. </span></div>
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Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-35981645622260425482015-11-19T08:29:00.001-05:002015-11-19T08:29:59.448-05:00June, One<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June was stubborn, even she wouldn’t argue that. But more than a bad case of bull headedness, June was just plain mad. She walked around town spoiling for a fight, and made sure everyone knew it. She pushed her way through crowds and groused her way around a shop, laying down complaints as heavy and loud as her thunderous footsteps. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-a1912e91-1fef-a113-6c33-368dcc1c5a11" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why ain’t there any Miracle Whip on the shelves?”, she roared the week before Thanksgiving. “I CAN NOT have a turkey and dressin’ sandwich without Miracle Whip. Do you people not know it is THANKSGIVING AND THE LORD WILL NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING BUT MIRACLE WHIP ON A TURKEY AND DRESSIN’ SANDWICH?” </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Poor Amos Whitney, 18 years old and ginger headed, his face so full of pimples you could hardly see his freckles, was June’s victim that day. Amos tried to assure her that Jesus would be equally accepting of Miracle Whip or mayonnaise, but she’d have none of it. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That is why it is called MIRACLE Whip, Amos!”, she bellowed. “Do you presume to think that the Son of God would settle for mayonnaise on this holy holiday?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a hard point to argue. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June was, to her credit, a most extraordinary cook. Her turkey was perfection - all moist and salty on the inside, and brown and crisp on the outside. Her biscuits would make you weep. More than one unfortunate relative had suffered through June’s tirades for a ladleful of her gravy. This year, June was playing host to nearly two dozen relatives and townspeople, and the preparations were making her even more ornery than usual. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it was hot. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November can be a bitch like that. Mornings saw children at the bus stop bundled up in parkas and too short jeans, huddled together like a waddle of penguins. By afternoon, they’d be running around town barefooted in shorts. The trees tried their best to show color and drop leaves, and the daylilies beneath them couldn’t quite decide whether to bloom or give up the ghost. June had moved through her childbearing years unhampered by both children and men, and had just recently experienced the relentless heat from within of menopause. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">November was pissing her off. “Lord,” she’d prayed every morning since the middle of October, “Give a poor woman a break and send me a high of fifty degrees. Amen.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thought of cooking all day (and the day before) for folks who didn’t give a rip about her the other 364 days of the year made June madder than hell. She wouldn’t do it at all, shouldn’t do it at all, except for one, darling, charming, precious, five year old nephew. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June didn’t like children, hadn’t anyway until Owen was born. The first time she’d met him, he was nearly six months old, with a head full of curls and big, milk chocolate eyes. He buried his sweet smelling face into her neck, held her ear with a chubby fist, and fallen fast asleep - and June had fallen in love. He was the only person she could clearly remember loving since her mama died when she was ten. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once a month ever since, June had made the pilgrimage to Carthage, 30 miles away, just to visit Owen and his dull, dough faced parents. She brought him books and sweets and, once, a rocking horse made with real horse hair. She pushed him in the stroller and later, the tire swing. She taught him to play checkers and blow bubblegum and snap his fingers. She let him steer her old truck down the driveway and rolled her eyes behind his mother’s back when she chastised him. He thought she was perfect, and the feeling was mutual. </span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June would spend countless hours preparing an elaborate meal for thankless relatives, just so she and Owen could sneak away to the back porch and eat nonpareils and talk about how fat Aunt Eliza had gotten. “I’m not that fat, am I?” she would ask and Owen’s eye’s would get big before he said, in all seriousness, “Noooooooooo?” Then June would laugh and pull him close and smell his sweet head. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But right now, all she could see was Amos Whitney’s dumb, pimply face sputtering on about Jesus loving mayonnaise, too. “MY GOD, AMOS. Just order me some Miracle Whip and have it here by Tuesday.” She stomped out of the shop and onto the sidewalk outside, and right into the minister’s wife. </span></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-65536545586344126272015-11-17T19:47:00.000-05:002015-11-17T19:47:02.783-05:00The Ride<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’d looked forward to seeing him all day and now she spotted him, his little red car parked across the street, chugging steam out the back end. She stepped off the curb, nearly into the path of a giant truck with spinning rims. A goateed man scowled and gave her the finger, she blushed and laughed and ran across to the waiting car. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Did you see…”, she started as she opened the door, but stopped before she’d fully sat down. The air was different in here, hot and oppressive and thick with malice. “Hello,” she tried, but he stared straight ahead and did not speak. He pulled out into traffic before she’d buckled, driving too fast and following the car ahead too close. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was miles before he said anything; they’d left the city and were driving past the low ranchers that lined the road. Before long, the spaces between the houses would grow wider until the flat lawns turned to open pastures, and then they’d be home. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then he spoke and laid the truth in her lap like a stone. She wanted to cry out, but the weight prevented it and she simply sat there, looking straight ahead. If I don’t speak, she thought, then it will be as if I didn’t hear. If I didn’t hear, she thought, he didn’t say it. And though she willed it to be so, he kept talking and his words were like blows. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Names and dates and places and with each one, she barely whispered, “Yes,” until it became a mantra, yes yes yes. With each yes, a memory, guilt and pleasure and disgust, and disbelief that even now, with his words thrashing her, each yes made her breathless. She had regretted everything but could stop nothing, until she believed she was beyond redemption. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His voice was sharp, emotionless. She wanted to cry and scream and kick her legs. She wanted to tear at her clothes and claw at the window and rip at her skin until she was raw and bloody. She wanted to beg and tell him that she was sorry, so sorry, that this would never happen again. But she knew she was lost and could not be found. She could not apologize for who she was, nor make promises for a person she could not be. So she stayed silent except for her brittle yeses, even when he demanded answers. Even when he wept. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he pulled into their long drive, she could see her father’s car parked sideways in front of the house. Her father held the door open for her, and she registered her suitcase in the back seat. She looked at the house and saw the flowers she’d planted in the window box the month before had withered from lack of care. The paint on the porch was peeling, and the shutter on the kitchen window had slipped from its hinge. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The men stood outside the car and spoke briefly, then shook hands. For a moment, it looked as if her father wanted to embrace, but thought better of it. When he got into the car, he exhaled long and slow, then started the car. </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-b97fafa4-180e-afe0-ee9a-6b713f5232be"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They drove in silence. </span></span>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-25427187710639976202014-11-04T10:14:00.000-05:002015-11-17T21:50:39.127-05:00Richard<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was always a plate of buttered toast at breakfast. Sometimes she’d fix eggs and bacon, or sausage and pancakes, sliced tomatoes and, when there was enough money in the grocery tin, thin slices of salty country ham, curled up around the edges, fat glistening. But there was always a plate of buttered toast. Half a loaf, perfectly brown, perfectly buttered, towering high in the middle of the table like a yeasty crown. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Breakfast</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, she’d call, and kids would tromp down stairs, shirts halfway done, hair still wet. They’d shove the feast into their mouths, yelling at each other between bites, complaining of bathroom indignities and trading pinches beneath the table. Then they would disappear in a whirl of dust kicked up by the tires of the school bus, carrying away their noise and mischief and holding it tight until 3 o’clock. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the children had grown and gone, the plate of toast continued to appear every morning, though most mornings it was accompanied by oatmeal or cold cereal and cream. Richard sat at the head of the table and chewed silently, clutching his hat in one hand so he could rise with the last swallow. HIs wife rattled pots and pans and tried to fill the space left by her children’s voices. She regularly let out heavy sighs, wanting to say something and not having anything to say, breathing out her discontent into the room.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They were alone, but they were not lonely. They learned to talk about things other than report cards and football games, trouble on the bus and teenaged dating. They remembered that they fell in love with each other first and, to their surprise, did it all over again. They held arthritic hands and kissed wrinkled cheeks and read aloud to each other from matching easy chairs. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The morning after his wife died, Richard walked down the stairs of their house and sat at an empty table for the first time in forty-seven years. He realized, in a rush of regret and sadness, that he had no idea where she kept the toaster. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grief is a funny thing. You can make a racket and push it down and away and hammer away at it until you drown it out. Or you can wrap your arms around it like a lover, and wear it around like a black and terrible robe, losing yourself in the heaviness of the burden. Richard encased himself in grief. He boarded up windows and shunned visitors, left dinners and cards to pile up on the front porch and trip up anyone who dared ring the bell. His Salisbury Steak Sentry, his Hallmark Guard; he fought his neighbors with their own good intentions. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The children had all moved away and did not bear witness to his unraveling. He answered the phone when they called and said all the right things, Y</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">es, yes! I just went out last night! Yes, yes! Of course I’ll come for Christmas!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Then hung up the phone and sank down lower in his chair and wept. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And just when Richard starting eyeing his belts in a different way, and questioning the ability of certain light fixtures to bear his weight, the letter came. The script on the front was old woman scrawl, but he recognized in it the young woman he once knew. His hands trembled when he opened it, and the message made him suck in his cheeks and hold his breath until he nearly forgot to breathe again. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9b48b173-7b5d-b9e3-0cbf-ff9d76690a05" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So sorry for your loss. Will be there at Christmastime, would love to see you again. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-M</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He carefully folded the letter, returned it to the envelope, and put it in his back pocket, where it burned like coal. He felt himself blush, to have something that had touched her hand in such an intimate place. It felt like a secret, like a horrible, wonderful secret. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Richard rushed to the kitchen and began tearing open cabinets. He pushed past mason jars of green beans and the yellowed deep fryer (when had they ever used that?) and finally, in a low cabinet by the stove he found the toaster. He plugged it in, pulled a questionable loaf of bread from the pantry and began feeding the slots. One by one, until the bread bag was empty and toast piled high on a plate. He sat down at the table and slowly, deliberately, began to eat. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Would love to see you again. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was going to need his strength. </span></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-33405026797749240982014-10-09T16:40:00.002-04:002014-10-09T16:40:28.313-04:00Cole<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He hadn’t meant to laugh at her, he’d only been going along with the other men. He’d seen her earlier that morning, stretching before her run. She took her time, unaware that she was being observed. She looked strong; her muscled legs and broad back and long arms that reached over head then arced down to her feet as if in prayer. She finished stretching and opened her face to the sky before she started a slow jog away from him. She was beautiful.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When she appeared later, coming down the street much faster than he might imagine she could run, she took his breath. Then she clumsily crossed the street and he saw her face redden and the laugh stuck in his throat. He looked at his worn boots and his calloused hands and knew the hardness of his face and did not fault her for crossing. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His father named him Cole, and it suited him. His mother had wanted to call him Jeremiah and in denying her the name, Cole’s father cut the tenuous thread that kept their marriage together. His mother packed her belongings and left before dawn six months after he was born. She took the dog and left the child. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cole and his father lived in a rented house at the edge of a small West Texas town. They were white men in a town of brown men, and Cole learned early on to blend in. His father went to work on the oil rigs before Cole left for school and came home after he’d gone to bed, if he came home at all. Cole fixed himself suppers of beans and cornbread, leaving a bowl loosely covered with a tea towel for his father on the the kitchen table. His father was never a father, and Cole was never a boy. They were simply men who lived with different sized versions of themselves. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His father taught him to work hard and long hours, to build a ridge of callous on the palms of his hands, the hallmark of manual labor. Cole was a decent student, but inconspicuous; boys teased the smart kids mercilessly. Everyone knew they’d never leave town, and to aspire to something greater than drilling foreman on a rig was to invite ridicule. He harbored a secret love of books, smuggled home under his jacket and read by flashlight under the covers of his bed. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he was 12, Cole started going with his father to the rig in the early morning, before school. He worked all day through the summers and over Christmas break. By the time he was 15, he was a floorhand, picking up slack from the roughnecks and fetching coffee and cigarettes for the derrickman. The men gave him grief and his father cuffed his head at every opportunity, but they liked him. He kept his mouth shut and eyes open and saw his future, crude stained and hard. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wouldn’t be a bad life, and he resigned himself to it. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One day when he was 17, six months from graduating high school and taking a full time job on the rig, he was met at his front door by the derrickman, hat in hand. His father was dead, crushed by a falling pipe rack. Cole clutched the copy of The Grapes of Wrath he held under his jacket as the derrickman said, “I’m sorry, son.” He never finished the book. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the funeral, he walked home and packed a small suitcase. He tucked his father’s pocketknife and silver belt buckle and best boots in among his clothes. He cashed the small check from the drilling company, and found another thousand dollars bound by rubber bands in his father’s sock drawer. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cole walked to the bus station and slid fifty-six dollars through the window to a woman the color of old newspaper. “I guess you know where you’re going,” she said. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He did not hesitate in his answer. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“California.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-851fbb9b-f6a2-83aa-a60f-05757bb2a2a1"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-87766698322520109832014-10-08T09:37:00.003-04:002014-10-08T09:37:38.600-04:00Second Verse<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Margie had tried every diet out there. The Scarsborough Diet, Atkins, Flat Belly, Wheat Belly, Hawaiin, Paleo, Gluten-Free, Fat-Free, Low Cal - you name it. She’d started dieting in the early 80s when a friend passed her a handwritten copy of The Cabbage Soup Diet after Jazzercise class. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Eight banana milkshakes on Day 4? Are you sure?,” she’d asked her friend. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-851fbb9b-eff9-1e71-da99-372b2e113ea3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“And all the cabbage soup you can eat!” her friend replied with glee. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turned out that Margie could only eat a minimal amount of cabbage soup before her farts forced her to isolate herself from friend and foe alike. She did lose seven pounds that week, so it wasn’t a total loss. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The diets always worked; she’d drop twenty pounds, buy a new wardrobe, then promptly gain thirty. She went from self loathing to maniacally enthusiastic with dizzying speed, and soon her friends learned to just smile and nod whenever she began talking about the latest diet fad. Oh, you know that Margie!, they’d say to each other and roll their eyes. They didn’t really mind that little bit of craziness, because everyone loved Margie. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was hard not to. She walked into a room like a gift, wrapped up in a velour sweatsuit and a dozen bangle bracelets. She wore too much makeup and too much hairspray and laughed too loud. She was a little embarrassing at times. She ordered her food in the accent of whatever country the dish originated in - Mexican for enchiladas, Southern for fried chicken, Chinese for lo mein noodles. Margie was a born and bred midwesterner (“You can take the girl out of the Heartland, but you can’t take the Heartland out of the girl!”, she liked to say), so the accents were always cringeworthy. But she charmed everyone with a smile and a wink, and no one seemed to mind too much. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Margie wasn’t married, and her friends could never quite get the full story of her past. “There was a man,” she’d say, lowering her voice to a whisper and cutting her eyes. But she never said more, and when pressed she’d change the subject. What kind of man could have that effect on Margie?, they wondered, and agreed that regardless, he didn’t deserve her. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Margie belonged to the local Lutheran church, she volunteered at the hospital and was a reading buddy at the elementary school. She hosted a monthly supper club and was at Jazzercise twice a week, without fail. She had a host of friends and a full schedule, but still went home to a cramped apartment she shared with her bichon frise, Malcolm. Malcolm had been her mother’s until her death, and Margie inherited the dog along with the apartment. He was an ancient and grizzled ball of fur, who seemed to wake just long enough to eat and use the bathroom. Too old to handle stairs and too lazy to play, his toileting was contained to a small square of astroturf on the balcony. Every day when Margie woke, she stared at the dog on his pillow, trying to discern if he was breathing. Every day she would think, “Oh, he’s dead!” only to be startled by a sudden, ragged snore. She was always a little disappointed. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Margie was, despite outside appearances, terrifically lonely. At home, she led a painfully mundane existence - eat, take Malcolm to the bathroom, watch TV, try to sleep. She’d complained to a young mother in Jazzercise about her sleeping problems and been shocked when, the very next week, the woman came to class with a small cello bag of Xanax and a pill bottle full of marijuana. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This will fix you up!,” the woman whispered. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Margie hadn’t known what to say, so she stuffed the drugs in her purse. She sat them on the counter and stared at them for a long time. She didn’t even know how to smoke marijuana! Didn’t you need to make it into cigarettes? She had some post-it notes, but had a feeling that wouldn’t work. After an extensive search on the internet and repeated viewing of a You Tube video from a young man named weedman420, she fashioned a rudimentary pipe out of a soda can and tin foil. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She nearly vomited after inhaling. Weedman420 had suggested a deep, hard, fast draw on the ‘pipe’, and Margie always followed directions. She’d never even smoked cigarettes, so the sharpness of the smoke penetrating her lungs was unexpectedly painful. The second puff was considerably easier, and by the fourth she downright digging it. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She scrambled eggs and made chocolate milk and giggled at Malcolm twitching in his sleep. She had a sudden and overwhelming urge to dress him up like Elvis Presley and spent thirty minutes trying to make a wig out of clothespins and felt before she forgot what it was that she was doing. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a noise. It was a not unfamiliar sound; the sound of a person trying not to make a sound. Margie stood perfectly still, the hairs on the back of her neck at attention. She could hear her own ragged breath and willed it to be quieter. Stop beating, heart! Stop breathing nose! Stop rushing, blood! She thought she heard the sound again, but wasn’t sure. She became convinced, standing there in her living room, that someone was in the apartment. Someone other than her and her comatose dog and Weedman420, frozen on the computer screen. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She had to get help.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-45021595753461756442014-10-06T17:42:00.000-04:002014-10-06T17:42:06.076-04:00First Chapters<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The men have been here since before dawn, and they break for lunch well before noon. If it is hot, like today, they will find shade under the magnolia tree in the front yard. If it is cool, like it will be before this job is done, they fold down the tailgate of the work truck and sit side-by-side like birds on a rail. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They are men of indeterminate age, all brown from heritage or work, unclear until you hear them speak. They open their Igloo coolers in the shade of the tree and set out the items, eyeing their neighbor and judging the happiness of the home based on the content of the cooler. One man unwraps a wad of foil to expose golden, greasy, glistening fried chicken from last night’s supper. Clearly, he is loved. Bread and butter sandwiches and August’s tomatoes, thick slices of ham on white bread, wrapped in wax paper with neatly folded seams. A half dozen noses wrinkle in unison at tuna fish. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peanut butter between saltine crackers and fried pies and carnitas and tortillas. Long draws from mason jars filled with sweet tea or glass bottles of coke. There is half a yellow cake with chocolate icing that one man pulls from his cooler like a magician. The paper plate it’s on strains and it looks like it might give way under the weight, but then it is safe on the ground. The bringer of the cake cuts it into generous slices and the men eat it with their hands in silence. It is likely the best cake ever eaten under a magnolia tree. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are never leftovers. Wrappers are folded inside of wax, inside of foil, into packets and back into the coolers. The men never litter; they pack away trash with the same care their wives and daughters packed the feast. With gratitude. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the men smoke. They take long draws on short cigarettes and pick bits of tobacco from their lips with their fingertips. Someone tells a dirty joke and, even though they’ve all heard it before, the men laugh. One of them leans back against a tree and pretends to sleep. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A young woman with a sharp face is jogging and catches sight of them. She makes quick judgments and crosses the street before she reaches them, being careful not to make eye contact. The men laugh, and she thinks they are laughing at her. They are. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-851fbb9b-e767-5c33-674b-2beb3eedd86f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carolyn hated to run. She hated the tight feeling in her chest when it was cold, and the feeling of running through pea soup when it was hot. She hated her breasts smashed tight to her chest and yet still managing to bounce enough that she wanted to wrap her arms around them. She hated the swish swish swish of her thighs fighting each other with every step. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You should take up jogging,” her therapist said. “It will alleviate stress! Release those endorphins!” The therapist was a whippet of a woman, not a day under seventy, with beef jerky skin and teeth that were too big for her mouth. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because she knew that she had to do something to pull herself back from the edge, and because she was far too mundane to try sex or drugs, Carolyn started running. The therapist was right - for an hour every day, running emptied her mind of everything. She hated running so much, it took all her will just to get one foot in front of the other. She could concentrate on nothing more than the square of asphalt under her. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was on this square that her eyes were focused when she approached the men. She glanced up for a moment and there they were; sprawled out on the lawn, brown and sweaty and laughing. Carolyn had split second internal battle between street smart woman who always crosses the road to avoid a group of men and liberal white privilege guilt dictates I should never judge based on stereotypes. In the end, fear overruled guilt and she cut hard to the right to cross in the middle of the street. She came off the curb awkwardly and stumbled, just missing a fall. She heard the men laugh and felt her face flush. She ran faster, silently shaming herself home. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She was nearly calm by the time she reached the front door of her apartment, though she knew she’d replay the scene over in her head countless times over the next week. It was a habit she couldn’t seem to break, even after all the therapy. Did I really do that? What do they think of me? Do they think I’m a bad person? It was an obsession that had cost her friendships, jobs, and countless romantic relationships. Apparently, constantly rehashing the most inane conversations is not a turn on. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Carolyn unlocked the door, went inside, and lay on the living room floor, exhausted. Her cat, Winchester, promptly walked over and sat on her chest. “I hate you,” she glared at the cat and he glared back. If cats were capable of getting a tiny middle paw finger to stand up, Winchester would be flipping her off. The cat had been another fantastic suggestion from the therapist. “A companion!,” she’d said, after Carolyn had mentioned a childhood pet. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The pet had been a dog and, as Carolyn learned approximately fifteen minutes after having the cat - cats are not dogs. Cats are, in general, assholes. The dog she’d had as a young girl had been named Velveeta, after her favorite cheese and seminal ingredient in most of her mother’s dishes. Velveeta followed Carolyn around the house and slept at the foot of her bed, and ran to the end of the driveway every day to meet her as she got off the bus from school. One day, Velveeta wasn’t there and her mother shrugged her shoulders and avoided eye contact. “She just ran off, honey,” was all she’d said. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wasn’t until Carolyn’s thirtieth birthday that her mother sat her down and told her the truth. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mail truck, honey,” she’d said. “Poor Mr. Olsen ran over her and broke her whole back end. Your daddy had to hit her with the shovel three times before…”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Jesus! MOM!” Carolyn burst into tears, “It’s my birthday!”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She sat in her therapist’s office the next day, telling the story and crying until her nose ran. When the therapist suggested a pet it seemed like a perfectly wonderful idea (and a far better one than running). Carolyn went to the humane society and picked Winchester from the caged rows of desperate felines. The man at the desk had her hold the cat in one hand and a sign proclaiming, Going to My FUR-ever Home!, in the other, as he took a Poloroid. He blew on the picture and fanned it, then hung it on a corkboard with a hundred other such photos. In each one, the new owners looked excited and the animal looked relieved. In Carolyn’s picture, she looked scared and Winchester looked pissed. It was a harbinger of things to come. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first night, the cat sat by the front door and wailed. Each time Carolyn tried approaching him, he hissed and scratched at the air. By three in the morning, she found her self lying on her belly, inching toward him with a palm full of tuna fish. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, you little asshole.” She inched closer and closer until the cat finally gave in and ate the tuna. He didn’t miss the opportunity to nip her palm when he was done. It was the most intimate moment they would ever share. Carolyn believed in forever homes - or furever homes - which is why, two years later, she lay on the floor with a cat’s ass in her face.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She pushed the cat off her chest and walked into the kitchen. There on the drainboard was one glass, one plate, one bowl, knife and fork. One spoon rested on a permanent brown stain on the counter by the coffee maker. They were the tools of a solitary person, never worth the effort to put away. She filled the glass with water from the tap, drank it down, and turned the glass over to dry. In the fridge she found some questionable Chinese food, three beers, and a hard boiled egg. She ate the food standing in front of the fridge and drank the beers on the couch while watching reruns of Full House. Not for the first time, she wondered how those homely little kids turned out to be such lovely women. Borderline ugly, really, she thought, then immediately felt guilty. She sat through two episodes and then turned the television off. It was Saturday - her day off - and shouldn’t she be doing something productive? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shouldn’t she be out with friends? Or getting ready for a date? Or doing anything except getting half drunk with her cat? She stared at the door, willing someone - anyone - to knock. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then someone did. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-40304343024776422892014-01-23T14:05:00.000-05:002014-01-23T14:05:10.081-05:00The Accident<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I was ten when my
father killed the dog. We’d refer to it later as The Accident but, in the end,
the dog was dead and my father was the one who’d killed it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I sat in the front
seat beside him that day, while he drove and sang along with the radio. The trees
had just started their slow turn to fall, and the air was warm enough still to
have the windows down. I stared at the white blonde hairs on my arm, golden
against brown skin. Father squinted his eyes against the sun and the smoke from
the Winston balanced on his lower lip. I watched it hang there with its impossible
ash, bouncing as he sang, tilting upward and getting swallowed by his mouth as
he inhaled. Just when it seemed doomed to drop into his lap and set the whole
car on fire, he flicked it out the open window and lit another. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
It was between the
flicking and the lighting that I saw the dog run down the hill from the
farmhouse toward the road. A giant
yellow lab, big and beautiful and stupid, his legs moving faster than his
brain, bounding across the gravel road in pursuit of nothing. I don’t know that
the dog ever saw the car; I am certain my father never saw the dog. He hit the
animal’s hind end, spinning him up and over the hood of the car and onto the
side of the road, fast and heavy and without flair. He pulled the car off the
shoulder and we sat in confusion and silence. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
My father got out
first, and slow-jogged to the animal’s side. I hung behind, trying to look
without looking. The dog’s tongue pushed through his rattling teeth and he panted
and whined as my father muttered, <i>shit,
shit, shit.</i> The dog shifted his eyes to his back end, and I saw what he
could not – a twisted mess of legs and tail, every bit of it going not at all
the right way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i>Shit</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Go back to the
car,” Father spoke without turning. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
He knelt for a
long time with his back to the car, putting his hand gently here and there on
the dog. I watched through the back window as he moved in so close that I
thought he was hugging the animal. The muscles in his back bulged and tensed under
his t-shirt and we both stopped breathing for a moment. Then he relaxed and
raised himself from the pavement. He rubbed his face hard with both hands, and
knelt again, this time rising with the dog cradled in his arms. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
He walked up the
long hill to the farmhouse. By the time he returned, I had fallen asleep in the
sun, my face pressed into the seat back. He did not speak, but started the car
and pulled back on to the road. Loretta Lynn was on the radio.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-16822751095678894462013-12-14T21:30:00.001-05:002013-12-14T21:30:59.901-05:00Blogger Camp!<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">If there existed an award for Worst Blogger Ever, I would get it. One might think that over the years I would get better at things like SEO optimization and reader engagement and monetization. Instead, I dropped my ads, continue to reply to comments sporadically (at best), and I just recently learned that SEO is not a spinoff band of REO Speedwagon. Which is kind of a relief, because they really suck. <div><br></div><div>So, when I get invited to a blogger workshop, I jump at the opportunity. Although I did warn them that if they started talking about boring stuff I was going to zone them out and play Candy Crush. Plus, the workshop was at the YMCA Camp Hanes, which is one of my favorite places, and they were going to offer us a summer camp discount, and give us one for our readers, AND they were going to feed us. Really, all they needed to say was 'free food' and I'd be there. </div><div><br></div><div>I picked up my friend Kristen from <a href="http://fourhensandarooster.com">Four Hens and a Rooster</a> and <a href="http://tentotwenty.com">Ten to Twenty Parenting</a> in the Big Lots parking lot (true) and drove up Camp on a cool and drizzly morning. Kristen is, among other things, a blogger and social media expert (true) and was going to lead the workshop. My job was to help out if anyone got stuck on a level of Candy Crush. Let's just say Kristen did all the work that day. </div><div><br></div><div>We were joined by some local bloggers who actually know what they're doing, including <a href="http://triadmomsonmain.com">Triad Moms on Main</a>, <a href="http://www.southernasbiscuits.com">Southern as Biscuits</a>, <a href="http://www.mywinston-salem.com">My Winston-Salem</a>, <a href="http://citygirlonhicksfarm.com">City Girl on Hicks Farm</a>, <a href="http://Beckyheel.blogspot.com">You Can't Make This Stuff Up</a>, and <a href="http://www.attagirlsays.com">AttaGirl Says</a>, as well as The Amazing Jen from<a href="http://Camphanes.org"> Camp Hanes</a>. She is The Amazing Jen because when you say things like - Hey Jen! Can we shoot some stuff after this? She says, "Sure!". Also because she is incredibly well read and geeks out when she gets retweeted by an author. She is my kind of nerd. </div><div><br></div><div>Everyone talked about blogging and I learned several things I will most likely not put into practice. I also said the word 'anus' and made an inappropriate butt sex joke (two separate incidents), so I feel like my contribution was worthwhile and noted. </div><div><br></div><div>Then we got to walk around Camp Hanes and talk about how fantastic it is. If you know me, chances are you know how passionate I am about Camp. My oldest is going into her eighth summer at Camp Hanes, my middle is getting ready for her first. I do not know that I have ever experienced a place, or a group of people, so joyfully committed to helping kids become their best selves through camp. It honestly sounds kind of silly, but I don't know how else to put it. Every summer, I listen to kids talk about how camp makes them mentally, physically, and spiritually stronger. It is transformative, in the very best way. </div><div><br></div><div>Camp Hanes does some really special things for kids - from a camp geared toward kids on the autism spectrum to kids with diabetes, to children of military servicemen and women. They offer programming year round - corporate team building and reunions, adventure parties for teens and outdoor education for school groups, YMCA day camp and residential camp. This weekend, they even offer a Winter Camp - which, I'm assuming, features lots and lots of s'mores. </div><div><br></div><div>It's moderately priced and they offer discounts for early registration ($100 off before December 31), Y members ($50 off), sibling discounts, and financial aid is available. Additionally, SFC readers get $50 off using the code SUMMERCAMPBLOG. </div><div><br></div><div>OK, you may be saying, sounds like a great place, BUT I LIVE IN RUSSIA! Or, I DONT HAVE KIDS! Or, I'M A HORSE! (That reads blogs, okay, whatever.) But you still want to help out a child who needs that financial aid. There is a button at the top of this page, and also on the Camp Hanes website, about the Send a Kid to Camp program. And right now, a generous private benefactor is matching all new donations, dollar for dollar, up to $50,000. So, if you give $1, it will be matched for a total of $2, and you've helped a kid enjoy an awesome 10 minutes at camp. Way to go. </div><div><br></div><div>( Really, give more than a dollar. $5 would be cool. $25 would be awesome. $100 and I will kiss you on the mouth, unless you're that horse.)</div><div><br></div><div>It was a great day. I learned that I love Camp Hanes, I am an even worse blogger than I thought, and everyone thinks the word 'anus' is funny. I'd call that a 'WIN'. </div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-23528984724731041942013-11-18T21:48:00.001-05:002013-11-18T21:48:58.116-05:00November<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">November roared in like a beast, blowing a bitter wind and stripping leaves from limbs, filling gutters and forcing us into the car in the mornings. We sit there at the bus stop, a line of chugging vehicles with foggy windows and, when the bus comes into view, we spill children out onto sidewalks. They shuffle-run in new coats, filling the air with their white breath, hurrying into line and on board.<div><br></div><div>Then fall decides it's not quite done here, and the neighborhood is left with a half dozen houses with premature Christmas decorations, and me with dead mums and a yard full of leaves. </div><div><br></div><div>That first week brought with it a lion's share of community grief, and I dance on the periphery of it. I know a guy, who knows a guy, and that guy died. I co-opt that grief and wear a maudlin cloak in solidarity. I wrap it around me out of ennui, and because there is a perverse pleasure in being sad when you're not <i>actually</i> sad. It makes you do things like cry over Joni Mitchell records and fantasize about how horrible people will feel when you die. I picture my grown children, wailing over my casket, wide eyed grandchildren sobbing over their <i>Grandmère</i> (I am assuming that one of the kids will marry someone French, it makes for a more romantic funeral).</div><div><br></div><div>I imagine this as I stand in my postage sized backyard, fighting a ridiculous battle with an endless pile of leaves studded with dog turds. I look at Shutup Roxy, hunched over in the corner, looking at me as she drops yet another steamer. She looks at me with cataract-white eyes and I feel I'm embarrassing her. I look away. "Why do you have to shit so much, bro?" I ask her. </div><div><br></div><div>My husband has started calling the three year old, 'Bro', and I have adopted it. I have adopted it and expanded it, bastardized it brah, brahmin, brotato, broseph, brocephus. It is beyond annoying, and I can't stop. "Have a nice day!", says the woman loading my groceries. She is my mother's age, neat and trim, delightfully cheerful. "You too, bro!", I reply, and I can tell by the look on her face that this is likely the first time in her life she's been called 'bro'.</div><div><br></div><div>The dog does not mind being called bro. Two weeks ago, we felt certain that she was not long for this world. An injury to her already shaky hind end meant we had to have 'the talk'. She looked up at us from her bed, the heating pad tucked under her hips. "If she's not better by Monday, it may be time," my husband said. Shutup Roxy cocked an eyebrow my way. The next morning she was up, still wobbly, but considerably better. She made her way outside to the pile of dog shit leaves and did her business. <i>Screw you, brah</i>, she said.</div><div><br></div><div>The leaves are still there, waiting. My third degree grief is faded, already replaced by plans for turkey and pies and Christmas gifts yet to buy. Thanks, I give thanks, that I can shrug it off and worry myself with yard work and grocery budgets. I hold a pen that hesitates above a sympathy card for an acquaintance, unsure of what to say and how to say it. I write what comes to mind first and then reconsider - I reconsider it all. </div><div><br></div><div><i>"So sorry for your loss, bro."</i></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-30525677273097216462013-11-07T09:54:00.001-05:002013-11-07T09:54:47.508-05:00Randall<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">The problem was, he couldn't seem to get it <i>clean</i>. Randall had hosed it off right away, of course; dried it with stacks of old towels and oiled all the pieces and parts. He cleaned it until his fingers tingled from the cold and the wash water froze on the hem of his pants. <div><br></div><div>But here he stood, watching a single rivulet of blood trickle down the handle of the machine. Randall checked his hands and face for cuts and found nothing more than three days worth of beard and a dried piece of egg from that morning's breakfast, stuck to the corner of his mouth. </div><div><br></div><div>He reached out and touched the cold metal of the handle, then held still and waited to catch the blood. It hit his finger hot and thick and he cried out in surprise. He balanced the droplet on his fingertip and brought it close to his face. He watched it hang there, suspended, and fought the urge to touch it to his tongue. He hurriedly wiped the finger on his pants, and went inside the house. </div><div><br></div><div>That was the second day. </div><div><br></div><div>On the third day, Randall stood at the back door, peering over his coffee cup at the machine on the edge of the woods. It looked exactly like it had looked for the past twenty years; heavy and cold and so faded that it blended into the oranges and yellows of the trees themselves. Off to the left was the dog run, minus dog, food bowl turned upside down. The squirrels and chipmunks and birds had eaten what had been spilled. Randall couldn't remember if the dog had been there eating when it happened and turned it over, or if he had knocked it over running to her. He did remember holding her in his arms, trying to stop the hole in her throat from gushing blood, and seeing a crow perched on the bowl, pecking at the food, it's black beaded eyes staring at him. <i>The fuck you looking at</i>?, it asked him. In his periphery had been the man, standing at the edge of the woods, looking stupid and drunk. </div><div><br></div><div>That night, Randall heard the machine crank up. He flew from the bed, tripping over shoes and dirty clothes, running into the dark in his underwear, panic caught in his throat and trying to escape.<i> Gah gah gahhh</i>, it said. His feet carried him through the yard toward the trees while his brain yelled <i>stop stop stop no sound no sound! </i>His feet finally got the message and Randall stopped halfway through the long yard. The night was still and the machine sat dark and quiet, a great black hulk, sleeping. He stood there watching it until his toes went numb in the wet grass.</div><div><br></div><div>On the fourth day, Randall walked around the machine again and again. He looked under it and over it and in it. He saw no mysterious drops of blood, no stains, no sign of use. He crouched down low and put his ear to the ground and closed his eyes and asked the earth for answers. When he opened them, he saw it. A small square of red plaid cloth, caught on a blade inside the machine. It fluttered there, waving at him. <i>How did you miss me</i>?, it said. He saw it as a larger piece, with brown buttons and smelling of smoke and whiskey, hanging on the man in the woods. </div><div><br></div><div>Randall took the square of cloth between two fingers, careful not to touch the machine. It was impossible that it was there, no fabric or man made material had gone in. Nothing that wasn't nature made had <i>ever</i> gone in, he was sure of that. He glanced at the circle of charred earth behind the dog lot. No, he was sure of that. He held the cloth to his face and smelled cigarettes. </div><div><br></div><div>He set it on fire on the fifth day. He nearly set everything else on fire as well, and battled errant sparks with fire extinguishers and the great green garden hose while the machine sat blazing in the middle of it all. Within an hour, Randall had stripped to his underwear and boots and danced around the hot metal, his skin red and blisters boiling around his mouth. He kept it burning until nightfall, when the last of the embers faded but the machine still glowed. He slept in it's shadow, the garden hose wrapped around his body like a talisman. </div><div><br></div><div>He was not surprised to find the pack of matches on the sixth day. They sat on top of the machine, red cover open, waving at him when he opened his eyes. RE-ELECT EARL REDWINE, it implored him, ABLE AND EXPERIENCED, it assured him. Maybe he ought to go in and call Earl right now, he thought. Call him and tell him about his dog and the man and machines that bleed and regenerate plaid shirts. <i>Got any experience with that, Earl? </i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>He sat there all that day, staring at the machine. He ate pinto beans out of the can for his breakfast, and gin out of the bottle for his supper. He kept the square of cloth tied around his index finger, and rubbed it absently over his blistered lips. It was cold, but the machine had become organic; growing out of the earth, it swelled and pulsed and kept him warm. </div><div><br></div><div>On the seventh day, Randall stumbled down the long driveway to the road, a piece of plywood under his arm and a scattering of nails held between his teeth. He hit his thumb twice with the hammer, cursing the first time and crying the second. When he was done, he stood back and looked at the crooked sign and smiled. <i>That'll do it</i>, he thought, and read the sign out loud - "Woodchipper for sale - <i>CHEAP</i>".</div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-18800397055282804802013-10-21T20:16:00.001-04:002013-10-21T20:16:19.386-04:00Fall<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">It was amazing that she'd seen the leaf at all, her eyes weren't as sharp as they once were. But it was there, hung high in the bare branches, just hanging on, twisting. It was bright red, and stood out against the gray sky like a bloodstain. <div><br></div><div>Jeremy was late, but he was always late. She'd eaten half her sandwich sitting there waiting, and now the other half rested atop the brown bag on the bench beside her. The cold of the slats was seeping through her long skirt, between the fibers of her panty hose, piercing her thin skin and digging right into her bones. She didn't exactly mind it. She watched the leaf quiver in the air. It made her think of Jeremy, not even Jeremy yet, squirming inside her belly. The first time she'd felt it, she'd cried out and clutched her stomach. She never got used to the feeling, even when he was so large that she could discern top from bottom as he heaved and rolled inside her.</div><div><br></div><div>Across the greenway from where she sat, a small boy threw a ball back and forth to his mother. They both squealed with delight any time the boy caught it, and let out a chorus of "ohhh!", any time he missed. Jeremy had a ball like that when he was four, bright red rubber that he bounced around the house incessantly. He'd hit her in the backside with it once by accident, and they'd both laughed. He did it again, and they laughed again. After the fifth time, she'd begun to get annoyed and asked him to stop. <i>Jeremy, alright now, stop. Jeremy, stop. That's enough. I'm not playing anymore. </i></div><div><br></div><div>Still, he continued to hit her with the ball, laughing, unaware. She broke then, grabbing the ball and throwing it hard against the wall and, when he laughed again, grabbing him. She hit him until the only sound he made was tight gasps; until he lay on the floor with his arms over his head and his knees curled in to his body. He lay there long after she'd stopped the beating, so long that she thought he'd fallen asleep. Her hot rage subsided and her head full of guilt and shame, she'd started to put a blanket over him. When her shadow fell across him, he screamed and pushed himself along the floor, away from her. </div><div><br></div><div>She thought to herself, for the millionth of many millions of times, <i>this is not the place for me.</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>She glanced at her watch, and picked up the sandwich. She took birdlike bites that tasted like sand. Is this why old people never eat? she thought. Will everything taste like this forever now, and fill my body up until I am nothing but skin and sand, and then one day I'll dry up and blow away? She looked up and squinted her eyes at the leaf, hanging still, alive for the moment.</div><div><br></div><div>Despite everything that she had been, and had not been, Jeremy grew up just fine. He married a just fine woman and had a just fine job and just fine children. They paid her rent in a just fine assisted living facility and he met her here every Tuesday and glanced at his watch every five minutes while he watched her eat her sand sandwiches. One Sunday a month, Jeremy brought her to his house and she sat on a chair covered in plastic and smiled and nodded while her daughter in law talked about nothing and her grandchildren ignored her in favor of handheld devices. <i>How are you doing, Mom?</i> the daughter in law would ask and she would always answer, <i>Just fine.</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>They took her out of one box and put her in another, moving her around to give the illusion that she mattered still. But she was just furniture. Except on Tuesdays, sand sandwiches notwithstanding. On Tuesdays, when she could get a chill from the park bench and imagine that it was her throwing the ball to the boy, and believe that Jeremy would be here on time. She closed her eyes to wait. </div><div><br></div><div>Above her the red leaf shuddered, and fell.</div><div><i><br></i></div><div><i><br></i><div><br></div></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-87407526740784671812013-10-15T22:04:00.001-04:002013-10-15T22:04:12.207-04:00Charlene, Part Three<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">Charlene awoke to a pounding behind her eyelids. She tasted blood on her lip, white Zinfandel on her teeth, and smelled something animal from under her arms. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she saw stars, and still the pounding did not cease. <i>Charlene</i>! she heard a voice call and opened her eyes when she realized the voice was coming from the same place as the pounding. Not from inside her head, but from the front door. <div><br></div><div>She was sitting on the kitchen floor, propped up against the cabinet, her bare legs splayed out in front of her. She was still wearing just a bra and the Spanx, now rolled halfway down her belly. <i>Fuck</i>, she tried to say aloud, but her mouth was dry and her tongue swollen, and the word fell out flat. <i>Fuhhh</i>. On the floor next to her was the now empty bottle of wine, and a full ashtray. Charlene hadn't smoked in five years. </div><div><br></div><div>The pounding was coming into focus now, and there was her name again, <i>Charlene</i>!, still coming from a million miles away. She started to get up from the floor and the backs of her legs stuck to the vinyl tile. Bits of spun sugar covered the floor and, Charlene saw as she looked around, nearly everything else. From the table to the cabinets to the ceiling fan, the kitchen was draped with fine, golden sugar spiderwebs. And there, in the middle of the kitchen table, was the cream puff tree. It was smashed together and dripped with custard and sugar. In some places, it appeared to be held together with Hubba Bubba. The entire thing leaned precariously to the east. </div><div><br></div><div><i>Fuhhh</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>She started to say <i>what happened?</i>, but that's the moment she looked at the windowsill and saw that the little white pill was no longer there. </div><div><br></div><div><i>Fuhhh</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>"Charlene!", it was Darrell's voice calling from behind the front door, she realized now. She hurried to the door, calling "I'm coming! Did you forget your keys?"</div><div><br></div><div>She forgot her state of semi-undress and threw opened the door. "Damn, baby," said Darrell, "you are <i>ready</i>!" He reached for her and she jumped back. </div><div><br></div><div>"What in the hell, Darrell!"</div><div><br></div><div>"You called me, sweetie. You called me and said you wanted to make another baby and I'm here! I'm ready, and so are you in your special panties!" The man smelled like coffee and deer piss.</div><div><br></div><div>"Darrell, I am fifty damned years old and I am not making another baby with you and I am trying to get to Bunco and I do not have time for this shit and oh <i>GOD</i> is that blood on your coveralls?" Charlene felt her stomach rise. </div><div><br></div><div>"Bunco? Charlene, did you get The Call?" And it was the look on his face that got her moving again. This wasn't about cream puff trees or prescription medicines or Spanx, this was about <i>Bunco</i>, by God. This was about finally fitting in with the Ladies' Society and being able to look at Kathy Mahoney as an equal. Granted, a younger, better looking equal, but an equal nonetheless. </div><div><br></div><div>"Darrell, you have to help me. I have to be there in-", she glanced at the clock, "holy hell, fifteen minutes! Get in here and help me with this cream puff tree!" </div><div><br></div><div>Darrell followed Charlene through the doorway into the kitchen. "What! What happened in here, Charlene?" Darrell looked around the kitchen, his neck straining against his coveralls, a red band rising over his collar and up his cheeks. </div><div><br></div><div>"What is all over the floor? In the fan? Is that <i>Hubba Bubba</i>?" </div><div><br></div><div>"Now honey, I can get this all cleaned up later. Right now, I just need you to bear down and help me!"</div><div><br></div><div>Charlene turned just in time to see Darrell turn the most alarming shade of purple before he fell to the floor. </div><div><br></div><div>"Darrell? <i>Darrell</i>!" Charlene ran to her husband's side and watched the color drain from his face. Hot tears filled her eyes and her hand gently touched his hair. "Oh, Darrell."</div><div><br></div><div>Charlene glanced at the clock. </div><div><br></div><div>There comes a time in everyone's life where they reach a crossroads. Where they have to decide whether to take the path that will lead them to ruin, or prosperity. In Charlene's world, prosperity was spelled <i>B-u-n-c-o</i>. </div><div><br></div><div>"Damnit, Darrell," she sighed. </div><div><br></div><div>Charlene grabbed her husband under his arms and started dragging him through the kitchen into the living room. Her bare feet sticking with each step, the smell the deer stand coming off in him in waves, every ounce of her body throbbing. Getting him into the living room was not as difficult as getting him into his recliner. She had to get on her hands and knees to give him one final heave and heard, and felt, her Spanx give a great rip up her backside. </div><div><br></div><div>When he was finally sitting upright, he almost looked like he was sleeping. If only his hand was down his pants and he was snoring, she might believe he was. The thought of it made her tear up again, and she turned quickly to leave. She stopped suddenly, reached over his still body, and turned on the television. "I'll be back," she said. "Don't go anywhere."</div><div><br></div><div>Charlene walked into the kitchen and glanced at the clocked once again. She should be at Bunco by now. She'd be late, and she wouldn't have the Hubba Bubba cream puff tree, but she could still make it. A little concealer, a little perfume, and she'd be alright. </div><div><br></div><div>Then the doorbell rang. </div><div><br></div><div><i>Oh, you have got to be kidding me</i>, she thought. It was no doubt the UPS guy or someone selling stupid cookies, but they were persistent. Charlene ignored the bell and it fell silent. She stood for a moment and listened and then she heard it - a soft, soft tapping at the glass door to the patio. She turned to see Kathy Mahoney and three other members of the St. Loquacious Ignatious Ladies' Society staring at her. Their hair and clothes were perfect, and their modestly lipsticked mouths formed a trio of perfect o's. Together, they seemed to be saying, <i>ooo</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>"Charlene, hon?", said Kathy Mahoney, "Did I not mention you were hosting?" </div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-17176193112527843702013-10-10T22:32:00.001-04:002013-10-11T09:32:51.013-04:00Charlene, Part Two<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">Charlene was no Martha Stewart. But if there was anyone at St. Loquacious Ignatious that could pull together a cream puff tree, it was her. She baked the puffs and filled them, Band-Aid flapping over her right eye the entire time. She impressed herself, rising to the occasion with such a terrific handicap. Who else could bake and fill cream puffs with part of their face missing? Certainly not even Ms. Martha Stewart. <div><br></div><div>Charlene was feeling good - so good that she decided to have a glass of wine (just one, temperance is next to Godliness, so sayeth the Ladies Social Society as they sip their White Zinfandel) and come back to the cream puff tree later. She poured a glass, put Michael Bolton (that sexy beast!) on the CD player, and walked to her bedroom. Now might be a good time to try on that dress. </div><div><br></div><div>She finished her wine and started digging through her unmentionables drawer. Past the utility underwear, barely glancing at the 'special occasion' panties Darrell bought her for their 20th anniversary (<i>Do I have them on backwards</i>? She had asked him.). Back to the right hand corner where her Spanx lived, rolled up around a lavender sachet. Charlene embraced her shape. She was nearly fifty and had come to the conclusion a decade ago that what she had was a gift from God and she should love it and treat it well. Good treatment, she believed, included the occasional pecan pie or Oreo. She didn't think a single woman in the Ladies Social wore double digits, though. She had seen Kathy Mahony's eyes wander to her midsection as they talked. </div><div><br></div><div>She didn't like it, but if a visible panty line was the difference between getting in to the Ladies Social or spending eternity teaching four year old Sunday School, she'd suffer the Spanx. </div><div><br></div><div>They seemed impossibly small. She remembered the day she first brought them home and pulled them from the package. She looked at what appeared to be a pair of tights for a dwarf (<i>little person</i>, she mentally corrected herself), then at the size on the package. <i>Maybe they use European sizing</i>, she thought. </div><div><br></div><div>"Naw, that's just as big as they are. They stretch." Judy had told her over the phone. Charlene had never seen Judy with a single visible panty line, so she obviously knew what she was talking about. </div><div><br></div><div>That first time, it had taken her nearly twenty minutes to put them on. Now, she expertly rolled one leg of the supportive undergarment up and slipped it on. She rolled the second leg up, careful not to put her foot through the crotch-hole. </div><div><br></div><div>"There is a crotch-hole in there, Judy!" Charlene had yelled over the phone. "What in the fresh hell do you need a big hole in the crotch of your drawers for?" Charlene was worried that Darrell might think the hole was there for his convenience. Only Darrell could think of Spanx as an invitation.</div><div><br></div><div>Any fifty year old woman who drinks more than a single glass of White Zinfandel at church bingo can tell you <i>exactly</i> what that crotch-hole is for.</div><div><br></div><div>Michael Bolton was singing on the CD in the living room, and Charlene sang along, <i>when a man loves a woman</i>, as she rolled the Spanx up it's critical point, right across her c-section scar. Proper positioning was crucial at this moment, and required a kind of clean and jerk maneuver, or her midsection ended up looking like a can of biscuits that had blown out on one side. </div><div><br></div><div>The phone rang. </div><div><br></div><div>"Darrell!" Charlene said aloud and ran into the kitchen, Spanx halfway up. When she rounded the corner and passed the kitchen table, her bare foot hit a patch of spilled wax. Charlene's increased speed and decreased coordination sent her hurtling toward the floor. The Spanx held her legs together and she fell like a drunken mermaid that had suddenly been thrust upon dry land, flopping onto her knees and then face first, into the kitchen table.</div><div><br></div><div>She tasted the blood before she saw it. </div><div><br></div><div>"Damn <i>damnit</i>," she said, and ran her tongue over her already swelling lip. "That's gonna leave a mark."</div><div><br></div><div>(To be continued)</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-58667110208056109112013-10-09T21:00:00.001-04:002013-10-09T21:00:19.447-04:00Charlene, Part One<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">Charlene couldn't believe the words on the screen. <div><br></div><div>She'd been a member at St. Loquacious Ignacious Intermediate Lutheran Church for nearly three years. She had baked countless chicken pies, knitted forty-seven (and two-thirds) prayer shawls, taught Sunday school to the four and five year olds (including the Martin twins, those little bastards, God forgive her), and served on the Stewardship committee for the past 18 months. Despite her relentless dedication to the St. Lo community, and a equally fervent (if not entirely honest) commitment to her faith, one thing remained just beyond her grasp. </div><div><br></div><div>Until today. She read the words again - <i>Hey Charlene, hon! Missy's cat had to have an emergency hysterectomy this morning and she had to cancel on us! Would you be interested in subbing for Bunco tonight? </i>She thought this day would never come; the invitation into the sanctum sanctorum of female church life at St. Lo's. The Holy Grail of Intermediate Lutheran society! The email was sent by none other than the president of the St. Lo's Ladies Social Society, Kathy Mahoney. Charlene was so excited she almost missed the postscript: <i>PS - Missy was in charge of dessert, so if you could make something yummy, that would be super! Thanks, hon!</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>Charlene knew that this was her chance to shine. She'd need the perfect outfit, a killer dessert, a brow wax and her most powerful pair of Spanx. But first, she had to tell someone. Darrell, her husband of 32 years (and soon to be Second Vice-President of Mortgage Loans at the auxiliary branch of First Citizens Bank), was up in a tree somewhere, trying to shoot a deer. Nothing less than a medical emergency was getting him off the stand. "Judy!" Charlene scrambled for the phone and dialed her very best friend in the whole world. </div><div><br></div><div>"Judy, it's <i>happened</i>!"</div><div><br></div><div>On the other end of the line, her friend gasped. "Bunco?"</div><div><br></div><div>"Yes, <i>Bunco</i>. Oh, Judy, I don't know what I'm going to wear and I was thinking about making my coconut cream pies but then I thought, well everyone's had that a million times, and then I remembered seeing Martha Stewart make this cream puff tree and I thought, now that would make a statement! And I need a brow wax because frankly it looks like a couple of caterpillars crawled up on my forehead and died and I don't have time to get to the salon and I was hoping you could come over with a hot pot of wax and take care of them and..."</div><div><br></div><div>"Damn, Charlene!" Judy broke in, "Draw breath! I'll be right there. Pick out a couple of outfits, pull out the recipe for the cream puffs, and try not to have a heart attack before I get there!"</div><div><br></div><div>Charlene dug through her closet, flipping past the yoga pants, mom jeans, and t-shirts, past the conservative twin sets and slacks she wore to church, and settled in the meager 'social wear' section. A pair of well worn denim capris, a couple of floral gauze tunics, a leopard print blouse. <i>Shit, shit, shit</i>. She knew she didn't have time to go shopping. Then she spied it - the red dress she'd worn to her brother's wedding three years ago. No one at church had ever seen it, it was still in fashion, and only one (maybe two) sizes too small. Nothing her full body Spanx couldn't handle. </div><div><br></div><div>She was reading the cream puff recipe when Judy rang the doorbell, wax pot in hand. "Dang, Charlene," she said, looking over her shoulder, "that recipe looks kind of complicated."</div><div><br></div><div>"Oh, it will be fine. All I have to do is make the cream puffs, then construct a tree out of them using royal icing, the envelop the whole thing in a halo of spun sugar!"</div><div><br></div><div>Judy widened her eyes, but said no more. "Alright, Charlene. Sit down there at the table and let's get those brows taken care of." She plugged the wax pot in and pulled out a wooden stick and two small strips of cloth. "This is that new wax they have down at the salon," Judy told her. "Guaranteed to go on and come off like silk." Charlene closed her eyes and leaned her head back as Judy applied the wax with the wooden stick, then smoothed on a strip of cloth. </div><div><br></div><div>"Oh, Judy, I just can't believe it! Finally, after all my hard work and chicken pies and YOU BITCH!" Judy had pulled the strip, and a good bit of skin, from Charlene's face. "OH SWEET LORD AM I BLEEDING?" Charlene jumped up and knocked over the chair, tripped over the cord and sent the wax pot flying. She wiped her brow and stared at the blood on her hand. "Oh my God Judy, you ripped open MY FACE!"</div><div><br></div><div>"Shit, Charlene, I am really sorry. That wasn't supposed to happen-"</div><div><br></div><div>"Well I GUESS NOT, Judy. I cannot go to Bunco with my face ripped off!" Charlene imagine her future at St. Lo's going from membership in the inner circle to perpetual nursery duty and started to cry. </div><div><br></div><div>"Charlene! Pull yourself together! Here, have a Xanax." Judy pulled a small white pill out of a Ziplock baggie in her purse.</div><div><br></div><div>"I do not need your <i>pills</i>, Judy! I need the <i>skin</i> to be back on <i>my face</i>!" Charlene's brow was pinpricked with blood, and her face was nearly as red. </div><div><br></div><div>"Okay, sweetie. I'll just out the Xanax here on the kitchen windowsill if you change your mind." Judy placed the pill on the sill, and let herself out. Charlene waited until she heard the click of the door, then counted to ten before she moved. She assessed the damage to her face in the bathroom mirror and decided that maybe, just maybe, she'd be presentable by that night. She covered the patch with a bandaid, straightened up from the sink, and steeled her nerves. </div><div><br></div><div>She had cream puffs to make. </div><div><br></div><div>(To be continued)</div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-54685619052649957692013-09-30T20:12:00.001-04:002013-09-30T20:12:14.084-04:00An Uncomfortable Post About My Lady Station<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">Blame it on my vagina.<div><div><br></div><div>If you want to, you can pretend that the past few months have been extraordinarily busy for me. If you're more comfortable with it, we can pretend that I've been hard at work on a novel, or that I spent the summer in an ashram developing my spiritual side. </div><div><br></div><div>But the truth is, I've spent my time playing Candy Crush and drawing on canvas with Sharpies and planning tables manners class and pressure washing the patio over and over again; pretty much anything I could do to <i>not</i> write. Because writing would mean writing about the fact that I was completely losing my mind. </div><div><br></div><div>(This is the part where my vagina comes in.)</div><div><br></div><div>My body has decided, at the ripe old age of forty-one, that it is time to shut this shit down. My ovaries are spitting out eggs at an alarming pace, my periods are now affectionately known as CSI: My Panties, and I sweat every time I eat. </div></div><div><br></div><div>Actually, I sweat all the time. </div><div><br></div><div>But I knew all that. You probably know all that. We laugh about hot flashes and bloat and vaginal dryness. It's sitcom fodder, with Grandma sticking her head in the freezer and Grandpa winking at the camera, because we all know that Grandma and her crazy men-o-pause are at it again! What I didn't know, what you might not know, what your husbands and partners almost certainly don't know (and God love the man who kept reading past the word 'vagina'), is that there is a decent chance that perimenopause will make you completely fucking insane. </div><div><br></div><div>I have anxiety and OCD. I have been through multiple miscarriages and the death of a parent, as well as your run of the mill life crises. I have never, until now, experienced depression in such a profoundly painful way. In a lock myself in the bathroom so my children won't see me crying way. In a looking for a rock to crawl under because I am just so damned sad, and <i>I don't know why </i>way<i>.</i></div><div><br></div><div>"I know! I seriously feel like driving off a cliff one day, and then the next day I'm totally fine." My friend has just finished telling me she's become a bathroom cryer, too. "I guess it's just normal."</div><div><br></div><div>That can't be normal. Common, maybe - but it can't be normal. </div><div><br></div><div>"My doctor suggested exercise, and frozen peas."</div><div><br></div><div>That remains the best advice I've gotten. I'm simultaneously dealing with my own insanity, and that of a hormonal near-teen daughter. There are days when I'm afraid we're going to engage in hand to hand combat in the front yard, followed by hugging and sobbing and professions of undying love. My husband is working a lot. </div><div><br></div><div>I am trying to exercise more, and read more, and write more. Like a Phoenix rising from the flames (totally a hot flash metaphor), I am making my way back. You can read a little something of mine over at <a href="http://Http://triadmomsonmain.com">Triad Moms on Main</a> on October 1 - something not about vaginas or depression! And more here, soon. </div><div><br></div><div>And if I disappear again, check the bathroom.</div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-32623280718623548562013-06-09T21:24:00.003-04:002013-06-09T21:24:44.181-04:00Loose Change<i>(If you haven't heard of it, NPR's All Things Considered hosts an occasional contest called Three-Minute Fiction. The premise is simple, write a story that can be read in three minutes - about 600 words. They provide the prompt, give you a week to write, then dribble out finalists until they announce the winner. The winner gets a prize, generally the book(s) of the guest author/judge, and publication in The Paris Review. Which is huge. HUGE. For this round, the prompt was to write a story in which a character finds an object that they have no intention of returning. This is my entry, which neither won nor placed, but was fun to write nonetheless. If you'd like to see the winner and finalists, check out<a href="http://www.npr.org/series/105660765/three-minute-fiction" target="_blank">Three-Minute Fiction on NPR,</a></i> <i>and be sure to read my personal favorite, Picked Clean.)</i><br />
<br />
<i>***</i><br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
She ran fast; her bare feet chewed up by the dirt road, hair
stuck to her sweaty face, right hand jammed deep into her pocket. She knew he
was right behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around. She just kept running. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In her pocket she felt the coin pressed deep into her palm.
She imagined that when she finally pried it loose, George Washington’s face
would be burned into her flesh. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
forever. She’d seen his sharp profile staring at her from under the porch and
wiggled her arm through a crevice in the wood, all the way up to her shoulder
before she managed to pinch it between two fingers. She’d pulled it out and
licked it clean and had admired Mr. Washington for only a moment when the boy
had yelled,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Hey! That’s mine!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And she’d started running. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Turning the corner tightly now, almost running into the
building. It was kind of hard, running with one arm pumping and the other
stuffed into the pocket of your dress. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don't
turn around</i>, she thought, and then, falling victim to the jinx, glanced
behind her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right there</i>.
Right there, so close she didn’t know how she hadn’t felt his breath on her
neck. So close that he could reach out and push her lightly, just enough to
make her fall. She felt tiny pebbles dig into her knees and the palm of her
hand. She rolled over in the dirt onto her back and he jumped on her, sitting
square on her stomach. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She kept her hand in her pocket, elbow locked, George safe
in her closed fist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“That’s mine,” he growled, pulling at her arm. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Is NOT!” she yelled between clenched teeth, “Finders
keepers, and ain’t no way you dropped that dumb quarter under the porch! If
you’d lost a quarter, the whole town would’ve heard you crying about it!”</div>
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He grew still and leaned down, his face blotting out the
sky. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Don’t you do it!” she squealed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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He stuck out his tongue. Fat and pink and wet, he let it
dangle there, spit sliding down the sides. “Beware the Tongue of
Dooooooooooooom!” he slobbered, and moved closer to her face.She screamed and jerked her knee up hard, slamming his
delicacies into his pelvis and making his whole face go white. </div>
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<br /></div>
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“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oof</i>,” was all he
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<br /></div>
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She didn’t wait to see if he was okay. She was up and
running again, fists closed tight, arms windmilling, feet scraped all to hell,
but the end in sight. The drugstore stood tall and gleaming at the crossroads.
Through the glass doors she could see people smiling and laughing, clean and
cool and safe. No one in there had been chased in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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“Give it to me!” she heard him yelling, recovered and in pursuit.
But he was too late. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She pushed open the doors and made a hard right. Her hand had
cramped up around the quarter and, for a minute, she was afraid it wouldn’t
open. But it did, and she held the coin between trembling fingers. She could
see him through the window, storming towards the door. She carefully placed the
quarter in the slot and turned the handle once, twice, and back again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plop</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She closed her eyes and made a quick wish. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Red</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her favorite. His favorite, too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He threw open the door and she gave him a long look before
popping the gumball into her mouth. She smiled, and began to chew.</div>
<br />
<i> </i>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-86947890512808199632013-05-28T23:26:00.001-04:002013-05-29T09:27:09.308-04:00Marlis<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">"Good lord, Marlis! Your feet <i>stink</i>."<div><br></div><div>I thought I smelled something funky when she first got in the car. Something like wet dog, or corn chips. I should have know it was her feet. </div><div><br></div><div>"They do not, these shoes are breathable!" She folds her legs into my Duster and closes the door with considerable effort, a creak, and a slam. She hoists one leg up onto the dashboard and points at her foot, slipping around inside a pair of Carolina Blue Jellies. <i>Jellies</i>. Christ himself would have had stinky feet, had he walked around in a pair of Jellies. </div><div><br></div><div>"Breathe-uh-ble," she repeats. Her skirt slides up to a knobby knee. Her legs are thin, young, tan, and dirty. She's not shaved in maybe <i>ever, </i>and there's something that looks like oatmeal stuck to her ankle. </div><div><br></div><div>"Did you have oatmeal for breakfast, Marlis?" I ask, and she picks the food off her ankle. </div><div><br></div><div>"Eggs," she says and looked for a moment like she might pop the morsel in her mouth. Instead, she throws it in the floorboard. She pushes her sunglasses up on her nose and leaned the seat back. "Let's go," she says.</div><div><br></div><div>I turn the car around, narrowly missing dogs and hogs, and head down the long dirt drive. In the rearview mirror, I watch her trailer grow smaller, swallowed up by a cloud of dust. </div><div><br></div><div>"I don't know why they had to have the service in Beaumont," she purses her lips and sucks her teeth disapprovingly. "Fancy."</div><div><br></div><div>"Well, Elma was fancy." I say, though if pressed I might have wondered if it had more to do with Elma's daughters than her. "GODDAMN!"</div><div><br></div><div>The smell punches me square in the nose and I nearly run off the road. "GodDAMN, Marlis! Put your shoes back on!" She's taken off the Jellies and thrown her stankass feet up on the dashboard. </div><div><br></div><div>"It is a long <i>RIDE</i>, Conrad, and my feet are hot." Her feet are crisscrossed with indentations from the shoes, red and angry. They sit up on the dash like a weird, podiatric ornament. She lets her knees fall apart, and fans herself with the bottom of her skirt. The resulting breeze sends the smell of her feet all the way through the car. </div><div><br></div><div>"Oh, God. You got to stop that," I moan. "It's like a convection oven in here." </div><div><br></div><div>"Roll down the window if it's bothering you that bad!" She snipes, fanning faster. </div><div><br></div><div>"You know I got the air conditioner going, Marlis! If I opened a window, it would let all the cold air out!"</div><div><br></div><div>"Apparently, your air conditioner don't work worth a shit, Conrad, because if it did my feet wouldn't be all swoll up and on fire!" With that, she reaches down onto the floorboard, picks up those godawful Jellies, and sets them up on the dash. </div><div><br></div><div>"You want me to open a window?" I ask.</div><div><br></div><div>"I wish you damned <i>would</i>."</div><div><br></div><div>I crank the window down furiously, turning the handle so violently that I nearly hurt myself. Then I grab her shoes and throw them out. The wind catches them for a minute, then they're bouncing along the side of the highway, plastic tumbleweeds.</div><div><br></div><div>"Conrad!" She bolts up in her seat, mouth open, eyes wide. Then we start to laugh. We laugh so hard that we forgot to turn around and get the shoes. We laughed until we cried, and then she kept right on crying even after I stopped. We pull into town, down the side street behind the church and into the parking lot. </div><div><br></div><div>"Damn, Marlis, I hate you have to go to the funeral without any shoes on."</div><div><br></div><div>She looked at me and sighed, "Not like it's the first time."<br><div><div><br></div></div></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-60261884640815046482013-05-20T20:13:00.001-04:002013-05-20T20:13:10.677-04:00Decade<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">"Daddy won't wake up."<div><br></div><div>That is all my brother said, and I said, "I'll be right there," and hung up the phone before he told me anything else. </div><div><br></div><div>We had been waiting for him to die all week, watching as he slept more and ate less. He could barely hold his eyes open the day before, as he looked at my daughter and said the last words I'd ever hear him say. </div><div><br></div><div>"She's such a pretty girl."</div><div><br></div><div>The phone had woken me, but the sun was up. I broke a nail on the closet door as I was getting dressed, and chewed it smoothe on the drive over. Twenty forever minutes while <i>is he dead is he dead</i> rolled through my head on a continuous loop. </div><div><br></div><div>He was not. </div><div><br></div><div>He was not dead, but he would not wake up. His chest rattled and his feet were cold and we would spend all day watching that coldness creep over his body. We would spend all day greeting friends and family and talking to nurses and swabbing his lips to keep them moist. We would talk and take the flicker of an eyelid as acknowledgement. I read the Reader's Digest aloud and made bad jokes and pressed my body against his in a vain attempt to get him warm. To keep him alive. </div><div><br></div><div>That night, my mother drifted off to sleep next to him, and I fell asleep in his chair in the living room. I woke not much later not to a sound, but to an absence of sound. My brother, standing in the living room, his head cocked toward the bedroom door. We walked in together, silently, and knew he was gone. I sat on the bed and my mother woke up and said his name and I screamed, <i>Don't turn on the light!</i>, but only in my head. </div><div><br></div><div>And then they turned on the light and made it real; made him inescapably, unavoidably, gone. </div><div><br></div><div><i>Decade</i>. </div><div><br></div><div>It cannot possibly be a decade since I tried to warm my father's dying body, since I watched my mother fall in on herself. She folded in and in over and over until she was hardly there at all. It cannot possibly be a decade since I last held his hand or kissed his face or heard his voice. </div><div><br></div><div>This week, a friend lost her father after an illness that robbed him of strength and dignity. The kind of illness that makes faithful people say things like '<i>at least he is no longer in pain</i>', and, '<i>his suffering is over</i>'. The kind of illness that brings a heavy, unwelcome respite to caregivers. She asked the same question that I asked, that everyone asks - when? When does it get easier? When do I get to feel normal? Like I felt before all of this?</div><div><br></div><div>I sigh and smile and avoid the question, because the answer is never. </div><div><br></div><div>Eventually, the fog lifts. Sometime after that, pictures bring smiles and not tears. Later, you can laugh and not feel guilty. One day, you can sit and write about the day your father died and not be turned inside out with grief, hollow with loss.</div><div><br></div><div>I wish I could hold her hands and take her into the future, to the time when the clarity of details begins to blur. When you can't remember exactly what you wore and what they said. When you can look back and think, oh, it wasn't so bad, even when something inside reminds you that it was. Time turns snapshots into watercolors, making pain go soft. I wish I could speed up time and have her here with me, when memories are sweet and faith is strong and there is no doubt that we will laugh again. </div><div><br></div><div><i>Decade</i>.</div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-29306979752448272932013-04-27T10:10:00.001-04:002013-04-27T10:11:58.415-04:00Waiting<div id="dE_H" style=";width:100%; height:100%; ;">There is a man sitting next to me, telling a story. It is not a good story, but he is telling it with great enthusiasm, waving his hands and raising his voice. He is speaking to another man and we, this other man and I, are listening carefully, waiting for the climax of the story. Of course, they don't know I'm listening; me, with my nose buried in a book whose pages I haven't turned. Me, trying desperately to read the story on the page - the <i>good</i> story - but instead, distracted by this loud man and his spectacularly shitty story. <div><br></div><div>He is wearing brown suede shoes and pegged jeans and a button down, striped shirt, buttoned to the top. His hair is mousy and the part is crooked and it is still wet from the shower. He is young, younger than me, and dresses from the decade before he was born. </div><div><br></div><div>He stands abruptly and walks away - they started without him and he scrambles to catch up. What was he talking about? What was the point? Was he simply talking to fill a perceived empty space? I must know and don't care, and I'm disappointed in him for leaving me. </div><div><br></div><div>A woman sits down next to me, in the row of folding chairs against the wall. I cross my legs away from her and lean away. My bag is in the chair to my right, creating a safe zone of personal space. I am too conscious of other peoples smells, their body heat and proximity to me makes me strain to hold my arms close to my body. I am uncomfortable, but moving would be incredibly rude. So I sit, the lesft side of my body tight and tense, taking shallow breaths through my nose. </div><div><br></div><div>I will be here all day. </div><div><br></div><div>There are stragglers in the hallway. Some of them talk, too loud and too fast, in that superficial way you talk to people you don't really know, or don't really like. Those people you run into at the grocery store and are forced to make small talk while you desperately try to remember their name. These are the people who always seem to know so much about me, making mention of my children and life events, while I stare blankly and search the dark crevices of my memory for a name. <i>Who are you</i>? I want to scream, but I smile and nod and ask vague questions and look for a conversational exit. </div><div><br></div><div>I crack my knuckles and the woman flinches. It's a horrible habit and one I've had since I was a child. I do it so often I'm hardly aware of it. Sometimes, I'll do it out of nervousness in a quiet room and the pops erupt like rifle shots, pinging off walls and making old women gasp. I mumble <i>sorry</i> and wonder what I'm apologizing for. </div><div><br></div><div>My knee is cramping and my rear end is falling asleep. My shoulders are up around my ears and the shear effort of leaning my body imperceptibly away is making my jaw clench. I uncross my legs and lean forward and reestablish the personal space barrier. Twelve minutes. I feel like thirty minutes is the minimum I have to sit here before I can move without seeming rude. And then, I can't simply move to another seat. I'll need to go walking around this giant, unfamiliar space, pretending to find great interest in things like bronze plaques designating memorial meeting rooms. </div><div><br></div><div>I wonder if Richard Blythe lay on his deathbed, his mind resting easily knowing he would be immortalized by a bronze plaque outside a meeting room. There is a continental breakfast laid out on the table below it, and businessmen and women who are torn between the joy of missing a day of work and the pain of sitting through a seminar on increasing profit margins read it while waiting for the person in front of them to dig a disc of cream cheese out of a paper cup with a plastic spoon. </div><div><br></div><div>Richard Blythe - immortalized, recognized, forgotten by the time they get to the muffins.</div><div><br></div><div>Eighteen minutes. </div><div><br></div><div>She moves. I am released from my prison and yet highly offended. She has broken the spell and I find myself suddenly hungry for muffins.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-51729269832097847492013-04-18T11:51:00.000-04:002013-04-18T11:51:01.805-04:00Flashback '70s StyleI'm working on something - and by working, I mean looking at a lot of old photos and talking and thinking and not actually writing, but the writing is just all that thinking put on paper. And sometimes that takes awhile.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I am loving the horrid decor choices of my parents during the 1970s.<br />
<br />
Exhibit A, 1974:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z22q_gK4p5g/UXAO9U6KiuI/AAAAAAAAAyw/Yx27sDm9wec/s1600/kelraggedy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z22q_gK4p5g/UXAO9U6KiuI/AAAAAAAAAyw/Yx27sDm9wec/s320/kelraggedy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Where to begin.<br />
<br />
Firstly, I look adorable. Cute dress, cute hair, awesome watch. The kid behind me with the nice tan and unfortunate hair? No idea who that is. Raggedy Ann? Bitchin. I also got a matching Raggedy Andy that year, so I can only assume he is lounging on that amazing green shag carpet.<br />
<br />
It's hard to pick what my favorite thing in this room is. The Fisher-Price castle to the right? The killer sound system perched atop the pillars in the background? The hanging tassel of what was no doubt one of my mom's fabulous macrame creations? Or maybe it's the preponderance of dried flowers? Look behind me on the right and you'll see those awful, tall, foofy things that shed like a dog and made your nose itch. I have no idea what they're called, but if you were alive during the decade of disco, you know what I'm talking about.<br />
<br />
I would kill to know the titles on the stack of 8-tracks on the floor. I wore out my mom's copy of Elton John's <i>Madman Across the Water</i>. I remember...HOLY SHIT. There it is. My favorite thing about this photo - a life sized, golden plaster statue of a cobra. A golden cobra says you mean business. A golden cobra says, <i>"Hey, I may have a shitty stereo, but did you notice my golden cobra?". </i><br />
<br />
Fast forward to 1979.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mTpuKGQDCnI/UXARiKOGzoI/AAAAAAAAAy4/8QkoAMXLL7s/s1600/kelandshane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mTpuKGQDCnI/UXARiKOGzoI/AAAAAAAAAy4/8QkoAMXLL7s/s320/kelandshane.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The times, they are a'changin'. We've moved to North Carolina, and my folks are missing their cowboy home, so they went Western. 70s Style.<br />
<br />
In this photo we have me, dressed in a fashion forward stripey shirt, embroidered khakis and brown shitkickers. Seating next to me is my brother Shane, rocking the corduroy overalls and his own pair of boots. As a todder, Shane had curly hair. Which is weird, because no one in my family has curly hair, which leads me to believe that my mom was perming his hair. It is a trick to make thin hair look fuller, one she would duplicate on my poor father in the early '80s.<br />
<br />
In 1979, my parents loved Waylon, Willie, weed, and the color brown. Not necessarily in that order.<br />
<br />
The pile on the carpet is shorter, but the color is still delightfully pukey. The books on the mantle are a series of Time-Life books on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=the+old+west+time-life+series&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=21119451865&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14292059431190930969&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_9qage9d26m_b" target="_blank">Old West</a>. I spent hours looking at the miners, chiefs, cowboys and gunfighters. I was sure that one day I'd be flipping through them and see a picture of my dad.<br />
<br />
This is around the same time my mom started painting statuary. Cowboy and Indian busts and figures came into our house an alabaster plaster and were painted and stained and fired and placed on every available flat surface, or hung on walls next to mirrors framed with horse collars.<br />
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When she wasn't painting, she kept macrame-ing. Sitting on the floor with the end looped around her big toe, smoking cigarettes and watching Gunsmoke. Our house smelled like Marlboros and jute for the better part of a decade. One her finest pieces can be seen in this photo, holding some truly lovely dried flowers.<br />
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Brown flowers.<br />
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And next to that, the brass spittoon that never held anything and the HOLY SHIT PLASTER RAM THAT GOES WITH NOTHING.<br />
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I don't know what inspired my mother to buy that monstrosity. I mean, I understand macrame. I understand shag carpet and plaster statues and I even understand the golden cobra (because cobras, by the very fact that they are <i>motherfucking cobras</i>) are badass.<br />
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But giant plaster rams are just weird. Even for the 1970s. <br />
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<i>(Hey, while I'm working on this thing I'm working on, why don't you go to my review of <a href="http://southernfriedchildren.blogspot.com/2013/04/epic-things.html" target="_blank">Epic Mom</a> and enter to win a copy. I'll pick a winner by this Friday!)</i><br />
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<br />Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2722088384595765913.post-16210440408640326842013-04-06T21:21:00.001-04:002013-04-08T11:53:42.665-04:00Epic Things<div id="dE_H" style="height: 100%; width: 100%;">
Y<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">ou may have noticed I've been scarce recently.<br /><br /><br />But instead of doing important things, like writing books or reading books or making dinner for my family on a regular basis, my mind has been sucked dry of productivity and creativity because of silly piece of mail.<br /><br /><br />From Ogden, Utah.<br /><br /><br />The (resourceful, respectable and always delightful. and fair.) IRS sent out an Examination Form for our 2010 taxes.<br /><br /><br />Some folks might call that an 'audit'. Some folks might call it bad names, but I wouldn't. Because I have faith in the kindness and generosity of the Internal Revenue Service.<br /><br /><br />We're a few days away from the deadline and almost finished and I have learned two things about the year 2010:<br /><br /><br />We had our third child.<br />We were not good record keepers.<br /><br /><br />One might have something to do with the other.<br /><br /><br />During this month, I have had little mental respite except for those magical fifteen minutes where, if the weather is good and Henry is asleep, I spent my time in the car rider line at school, in a terrifically wonderful way.<br /><br /><br />I read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Mom-Failing-Every-Little/dp/1479350257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360755810&sr=8-1&keywords=epic+mom" target="_blank"><i>Epic Mom: Failing Every Day a Little Bit More Than You</i></a>, by my friends Julie Harrison (MOV of <a href="http://mothersofbrothersblog.com/">mothersofbrothersblog.com</a> ) and Marianne Walsh (<a href="http://webandofmothers.blogspot.com/">http://webandofmothers.blogspot.com/</a>).<br /><br /><br />Yes, it's funny. Yes, if you have kids you'll completely get it. Even if you don't have kids, these stories are about <i>your </i>family - they're your moms or your sisters or you. But where a lot of the mom-humor around slips into dumb husband and poop jokes, <i>Epic Mom</i> never insults you. Julie Harrison's tongue is usually firmly in cheek, and then every now and again she says something that is so amazing that it makes you sit up straight in your chair. Julie is crazy prolific. She posts regularly, usually every day. She has published books. Plural. She is everything I wish I could be, but lack the drive and commitment. And style.<br /><br />Marianne Walsh is like a pair of yoga pants. Her stories are comfortable and warm and I feel like I'm at my own kitchen table, only with less screaming and vomit. I can see Marianne and I curled up on a couch in a couple of Slankets, eating popcorn and watching Alf.<br /><br />I've also spent the past week marathon-watching the first season of <i>Glee</i>. I'd never seen it, and I'm on like Episode 17. I don't really watch TV, so that is a whole shit ton of TV for me. I think <i>Glee </i>is a different post, though. <br /><br /><br />The book is pretty fantastic. The stories are blog post-ish in length. They're sweet and funny and smart and perfect to read in the car rider line. Julie and Marianne were kind enough to send me a copy to review, and not only do I recommend it, I recommend it as a gift for friends, family, coworkers, random strangers on the internet.<br /><br /><br />So, now I am going to blow your mind - I want to give YOU a copy. That's right, I am going to purchase one copy of Epic Mom and give it away to one lucky commenter on this post. I am a horrible blogger, and I don't pay enough attention to you folks who come here. I lost a follower this week, and I was going to come here and whine about it and give a big F-U to the person who unfollowed me, and then I saw it was my mom.<br /><br /><br />Buy the book.<br />Comment, and maybe win the book.<br />Keep good tax records.<br />Be nice to your mom.<br /><br /><br />Epic.</span></div>
Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06991384996924478820noreply@blogger.com10