Alice In Motherland

A Revised Hurricane Readiness Checklist for My Northern Sisters

2011-08-26T20:06:00.015-04:00

Ladies,

Bless your hearts! By which I mean a)you seem to be reacting with rather disproportionate panic to the oncoming hurricane forecasted to grace your shores and I feel empathy for you and b) y'all are so dumb. Really, really pretty, but so dumb.

So I feel like I have to tell you that you're overreacting. We're hearing that Connecticut Junior Leaguers have actually cancelled this weekend's tennis matches and Bostonites are letting people merge into traffic. It's like The Day After Tomorrow up there!

(Dude. I'm SO inviting him to my hurricane party.)

So in the spirit of sisterhood, even though y'all have been mean to me and mocked my accent every freaking time I've ever traveled north of Virginia, I have some advice for you on how to survive the approaching Hurricun (yes that's how we say it):

Get a blowout and a leg wax like, NOW. When the power and hot water go out for three days you'll still look fabulous.
Consider disregarding the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale for this one we came up with at UNC (GO HEELS!):

Buy gallons and loaves (respectively) of milk and bread, even if you have veganism or celiac disease. I can't tell you why--it's a secret known only to us SEC girls.
Just for giggles: while you're at the grocery store, buy inordinate amounts of something completely random--say, pickles and prunes. Then shake your head, tisk, and bless the hearts of all the other people in the grocery check out line like they have no clue.
Resist the urge to buy gallons and gallons of bottled water. Instead, fill up your bathtub and have a bucket at the ready (for flushing!--bless your hearts!). I mean, it's not like you'll go thirsty. It's going to flood!
Do bring a portable stereo with you to the grocery store. Once it gets really crowded, blast "Singin' in the Rain" at top volume to the throngs of emergency shoppers. Then teach them all a sassy dance number and cross "start a flash mob" off of your bucket list.
As a side note, y'all should really consider putting the sugar in the tea before you serve it.
Do NOT pass the liquor store. Buy all the booze you can afford. After enough hours without electricity you will be bored senseless and need respite. Also, you will learn that during a hurricane, alcohol is more vital than water. Even if you don't drink you can barter your booze for canned goods once the power goes out and everyone's food turns into...okay I'm not even going to tell you how gross that shit will be!
Know that your boyfriend/husband/lady partner WILL insist on driving somewhere during the storm. Don't try to stop them as they have no control over their instinct to rescue people/pull trees off of roads/get electrocuted/buy more beer.
Grits are delicious. Shut up.

You'll also need this: Traditional Hurricane Recipe:

2 oz light rum
2 oz dark rum
2 oz passion fruit juice
1 oz orange juice
½ oz fresh lime juice
1 Tablespoon simple syrup
1 Tablespoon grenadine.

Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and strain into a Hurricane glass filled with ice. Garnish with a cherry and an orange slice. Spoon feed to Jake Gyllenhaal while softly whispering to him how pretty he is.

Should you become really, really drunk, be sure to find a nice air mattress or floatable couch upon which to pass out. When your house floods you will rise with the water. This saved my second cousin's life during Katrina--true story.
When the storm picks up right good, prepare to fight to the death until only one of you remains. Watch for tracker jackers. You might need protection and/or a hunting partner so find a Peeta or a Gale.
Re: previous advice. To pass the time once the power goes, read The Hunger Games (by flashlight!) and then pretend your house is a Panem arena. Should your husband give you any lip about borrowing his hunting bow remind him that you are The Mockingjay.
If you're worried about how to entertain your kids indoors, under duress, with no electricity, do not worry. Follow the lead of a generation of Gulf Coast Moms and:

Put all of the children in the master bedroom. Tell them to keep trying when they complain that the TV and the lights don't work. A copy of the Little House on the Prairie series will keep them sufficiently entertained so long as at least one of the children can read aloud. If they screech too much give them a copy of The Hunger Games and tell them they're to be the next tributes.
Be sure to crack the windows in said master bedroom so that the gale forces do not shatter the window glass and decapitate/jugular-artery-sever any of them.
Lock the door on them. They will be FINE, unless they are not strong swimmers, in which case you might want to at least put the young ones in swimmies.
See above re: Hurricane recipe.

OK I just HAVE to tell you, bless your hearts. The eggs and milk are just for the french toast you'll make for the surviving children once the power comes back on.

Finally: good luck! May the odds be ever in your favor...

Everybody Out of the Pool!

2011-06-24T22:11:00.003-04:00

OK yeah, there are some rather ominous looking clouds overhead and your iPhone radar says there might be lightning but I see that as rather shabby evidence for your screeching at all of our children to leave the pool forthwith or suffer the thousand natural shocks of likely electrocution. Seriously, CHILL, other hockey mom at our end-of-season team pool party.

Despite your having told me that my daughter's swimming today--you obviously DID NOT NOTE the Hindenberg-esque mass of plastic, duct tape, foil and air with which I swaddled her casted, broken arm--will surely result in maggots (MAGGOTS!) emerging tempest-tossed from the dark, close confines of her pediatric short arm cast when it is finally removed, and your assurances that once you attended medical school--I hesitate to defer to your meteorological judgments. While I forbid my children to enter the pool within 30 minutes of a snack (for reasons conferred me by a generation of Texas Pool Moms, namely that should we reenter the pool within 30 minutes of eating our bologna sandwiches we would suffer cramps so debilitating as to cause drowning and death despite our mothers being right there, poolside), I typically refrain from this kind of unilateral pool evacuation until I've experienced thunder, lightning, and also either deja-vu, shadenfreude, or acid reflux. With all due respect, lady, you are no Jim Cantore and unless I see Willard Scott himself carried off, Mary-Poppins-like and in possession of no less than 17 jars of Strawberry Smuckers via a Cat 5 hurricane o'er the Louisiana delta, I shall not panic.

So chill, woman. Seriously. Have a sip of this rum punch I have so cunningly disguised as a Venti Starbucks© Latte. (I save those cups for a reason!) It is strong as well as tasty. Have it all, in fact--I have a cooler of it in the back of the minivan, between the boy's hockey bag and yesterday's groceries which sadly never made it to the pantry.

And what do you know! Just like that the storm has passed! All children accounted for, none electrified or otherwise. Someone's pug nearly just drowned but that had less to do with the weather and more to do with our goalie's insistence that all dogs can swim right before he threw said dog from the diving board.
So cheers, Panicky Hockey Mom With a Heightened Sense of Drama. Could it be that the mole on your arm is indeed, Melanoma? No? A tick? Lyme disease is rampant down here, you know.
Anyway, the water's nice.You should get in.

Yo Mamma Grama! Live Blog from the Duke Cancer Center, July 2010

2011-06-22T15:06:00.009-04:00

Author's note: the prequels to this episode can be found here, here, and here. The author acknowledges that the original trilogy is far superior, that Jar Jar is an asshole, Hayden can't act, and Ewan McGregor looks hot with a beard, and asks that you direct any and all criticism directly to George Lucas.

1:29 Leaving for Duke Hospital. I have my ebook, a sweatshirt, a vuvuzela, and a cowbell. (OK I really don't have those last two but I DID download vuvuzela and cowbell ring tones to my cell phone before I left the house this morning.)

1:34 Johnny's driving makes me carsick. But I'm glad he's coming with me.

1:35 OK maybe I'm not.

2:02 Johnny just did a doughnut in the minivan in front of Duke. REALLY wishing we had the General Lee horn right about now. THE WORLD SHALL KNOW OUR REDNECKERY!

2:14 Johnny is not allowed inside the mammography clinic. I panic. (The last time we were separated in a hospital Waverly was born and you know how THAT turned out so you can imagine my trepidation.) I promise the nurse that he will not stare or make inappropriate remarks or otherwise compromise the other patients' privacy but Mean Nurse must know Johnny and says no. Mean Nurse instructs me to go to the Special Room, undress from the waist up, and don the Mammogram Gown.

2:15 The mammo-gown has three armholes. Three. Armholes. I check my math then accept that there are people in this hospital with greater problems than mine.

2:16. OK so I require written instructions, with illustrations, for putting on the mammo-gown. I AM TELLING YOU THE TRUTH. And still I can't. Figure. It. Out. I am stressed out and sweating and starting to suspect that this is some kind of practical joke. Fucking Origami is easier than this. I give up and tie the gown in a vaguely toga-like fashion across my upper body. What with the sweat, my now-frizzy hair, and improvised outfit I'm sure I look positively crazyhomeless.

2:20 In the waiting room now. I am like, twenty years too young to be in here. The other women in the room eye me curiously. I suspect that they run a black market estrogen harvesting ring and that I may be in danger. I check the location of the exit signs in case of an ambush. Thinking they'll slow me down, I remove my fuzzy hospital socks for good measure.

2:26 Bored. There are still three women ahead of me. I shall call them Bertha and Ethyl and Maude. Maude appears to be asleep but I think it's a trick. Just to be sure, I try out my new vuvuzela ringtone. AT MAXIMUM VOLUME. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

2:27 OK I'm not so good at subterfuge. Mean Nurse just told me to turn my phone off.

2:30 Nervous. When I get nervous I tend to tuck my hair behind my ears repeatedly. This causes me no small amount of pain as I have a 2nd degree burn on my ear from a recent scuffle with my Chi. (The Chi won--THAT TIME--however I have seen enough Coen Brothers movies to know how to exact my revenge.)

2:35 It's my turn. I follow a technician into a room cold enough to freeze magma and there it is. The Boobie Squishing Machine. It is really big. I am not. I ask if there is a child-size version as I regularly require the child-sized blood pressure cuff and child-sized IV needles. (There is not. Also: mammogram technicians have NO sense of humor.)

2:36 The tech, Aretha (Not Franklin) (who is very kind but lacks the fanstastic headgear of her namesake), sticks tiny pink stickers over where I tell her I can feel the lump. My lump, my lovely lady lump.

2:37 I am now wearing my first, and the world's tiniest, pastie.

2:38 OWW. The tech has pushed my entire boob as well as a fair amount of skin from my neck and armpit inside the squeezie thing of The Machine. The pressure is not that bad, but it pinches. Also, there is nowhere to put my head so my neck is completely jacked to a statistically improbable angle.

2:39 This is not nearly as exciting as last year's knee MRI which made me feel slightly Six Million Dollar Woman, slightly Jake Sully in his Avatar pod.

2:40 Aretha has not seen Avatar. I tell her that this is unfortunate, as Netiri is played by an African American actress and Aretha is also African American. Aretha gives me The Look That Black People Are Always Giving Me.

2:41 OMG I haven't fed my boob to anything this frightening, intimidating, and menacing since I nursed Waverly. "I guess you could call this a Booby Trap," I say. (Yeah I said that.) The technician is thorough, if humorless, and has now pulled enough of my body into the mammogram machine that I think I'll know soon if my appendix is okay or I have any cavities.

2:42 And then it's over. Aretha leaves the room and I get tangled up trying to put the 3 arm gown back on and wind up straightjacketing myself. I require assistance. Maybe someday I will be old enough to dress myself and get a big girl mammogram.

2:50 Back in the Waiting Room with Ethel and Maude now, waiting for an ultrasound, which I did not know I'd be getting. I assume this means I failed the test. I am more distraught by failing a test than I am at the thought of breast cancer. When I was a child I'd have panic attacks at the ophthalmologist. (Vision Test Anxiety. It's REAL, people.)

2:55 My red sharpie just exploded all over the 3 arm gown. I now look like a crime scene.

2:57 Just found out I will get my results today. TODAY. Freaking out as I am not prepared either way. I have not thought this through. I need my mom, my husband, my sister. I cannot find this out alone.

2:59 Ryan. Our shining star. He just died. That really happened. So this really can't. I am not strong.

3:00 What this place needs is more cowbell!

3:02 Have made it to the ultrasound room. Discover that the worst part of this entire experience is removing these motherfucking stickers from my nipple. The doctor, an intern, is kind and tells me she sees nothing in the ultrasound. SHE SEES NOTHING. But I can feel it, I tell her. It's something. I am ready to cry. I am not making this up. So for the first time in my life I tell a woman to feel my boob. FEEL MY BOOB, WOMAN! She does. She can feel the lump too. She leaves to go get the resident.

3:10 Still waiting. I decide to ultrasound my forehead. The picture comes out way blurry. I think about using the ultrasound jelly to get a better image but it is very cold jelly.

3:21 The resident shows up. Alas, he is more McDreary than McDreamy. (*rimshot*) (*OK that was awful*) I stash my forehead sonogram pics in one of the armholes of the 3 armhole gown that is around my waist and smile like I'm not actually sitting there topless.

3:23 Dr. Strangeglasses repeats the ultrasound.

3:24 I do not get a diagnosis. I do not have a diagnosis. I do not have cancer. The lump is a ridge of dense, harmless tissue. I will be fine. I AM fine.

3:36 Before leaving the clinic I ask the nurse if I can keep the 3 armhole mammo-gown. I need it to restrain my children. She says no. I say you do not know my children.

3:44 I show Johnny my forehead ultrasound. He says it's too soon to tell the sex but we should totally frame it anyway.

**Author's note: Since penning this blog entry I learned that while I did not have breast cancer, my God-sister did. Does.

I hope that recounting my experience here neither mocks nor minimizes her ordeal or that of any survivor.

Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition

2010-12-28T19:00:00.003-05:00

When I was seven I was going to be a ballerina when I grew up. Or a nurse. Or Luke Skywalker. (Actually I really wanted to be Leia Organa but then she totally let me down when she kissed Solo which was gross! And totally uncalled for.)

Circle, circle, dot, dot, now you need the cootie shot!

And so, much to the conspicuous envy of my neighborhood playmates (I'm talking to you, Amy Bircher) I alone got to be the Pirouetting Jedi Trauma Nurse Assassin when it came time for make believe. This early propensity to polymorphism probably explains my fascination, nay, obsession with Transformers even though they were for boys. Because honestly, Barbies were soo static and boring. And also lacking in light and sound and working joints. But Transformers, well, they could be this:

Or THIS!

♫ More than meets the eye ♪

So when I got a little older I set out for degrees in Geology as well as English Literature. But that was only after I joined the Army. But eventually I did drop the Geology bit when I decided to go to law school. Or graduate school, to be an English Professor. Or a writer. And then promptly decided to drop everything, get pregnant, and become an Environmentally Conscious Stay-At-Home-Mom With An Overdeveloped Sense Of Justice And Excellent Taste In Literature. Who in her younger years looked a lot like this chick:

(I actually got this Barbie as a gift when I graduated Basic Training.)

So when I started this blog I was having one of my angsty/poetic episodes that typically lasts me anywhere from three minutes to three years and frequently provokes me to open a volume of Norton' English Literature,

(HAHA You totally thought I was going to say a bottle of Shiraz. SUCKER!!!!!)

wax melancholic, and revel in the company of dead sad chicks like Sylvia Plath and Hamlet's Ophelia (you know, Hamlet's bipolar girlfriend who falls/jumps from a tree branch and, due to the voluminousness of her inordinately poofy gown, drowns) while re-imagining for them wildly different outcomes. My Ophelia would float, breathe, put on a DVF shirtdress, and use the Force to kick Claudius' ass while tending to Laertes' and Gertrude's medical emergencies. En pointe.

A year and a half into this endeavor, though, methinks this blog channels Ophelia far less than (one of my) alter-ego(s), Alice, of Wonderland fame. Curious, absurd, illogical Alice who imagines six impossible things before breakfast, who is too large for her house and too small for her Queen.

Waverly, 2009

Me, most days

So I'm renaming the blog for a not-so-sad, not-so-dead chick who'd probably not back the family station wagon into a lake, but most certainly would have a corkscrew in her apron for opening the bottle that says "Drink Me."

Anyway,why exactly is a raven like a writing desk?

Curiouser and curiouser....

Happy Holi-Months

2010-11-01T17:04:00.006-04:00

This morning a Target employee wished me Happy Holidays. I was not aware that 11/1 was a holiday but my birthday IS Saturday so suddenly it all made more sense--the lights, the decorations, the gift wrap--so I said thank you. Although red and green are really not my colors. I know this because I've had them done and it turns out that ivories, grays, and taupes suit me best as well as--squee!--cheetah and/or leopard print. So if you HAD to decorate a tree or anything else to celebrate me on November 6th which is in five days yes I'm talking to you you would have to find something more muted like mulberry and olive.

Little known fact: One New Year's Day not long ago I vowed to wear something in cheetah print every day for a year. Because making a budget and drinking eight glasses of water a day were so 2009. And also: boring. I mean, you don't even have time to spend your shoe allowance because you're in the bathroom ALL FREAKING DAY and besides you just spent all your money on smartwater® which spelled backwards turns out to say the words I Don't Look Anything Like Jennifer Aniston.

In the end my resolution to wear cheetah print every day went the same way as all the others, which is to say that by mid-January I got bored of them, drank eight glasses of wine, and went shoe shopping.

However you should know that Crocs™ makes cheetah print foot--OK there are no words. Crocs™ are like foot prostitutes. Or therapists. You pay for them, they make you feel REALLY good. So yeah Crocs™ makes these fleece-lined cheetah print foot blowjobs. I can only imagine that this metaphor is appropriate because when I put them on I make the same face as--OK Mom and Dad stop reading RIGHT NOW.

Anyway my point is that, as my Grandma and maybe it was Mark Twain (I can't remember-they both had moustaches) always said, "Familiarity breeds contempt." Which is EXACTLY how I felt about 23 days into my ill-fated resolution. I had cheetah Crocs™, cheetah throw pillows, cheetah hand towels, blouses, heels, even--wait for it--a cheetah print Snuggie™.

(Honestly, it's like the ghost of Billy Mays lives in my house. It's an infomercial graveyard up in here, folks. Watch out for that Fushigi™ Magic Gravity Ball at the bottom of the staircase! BUT WAIT! Should you slip on it and cut yourself, I will recline you ever so gently against my Ab Rocket™ and will apply, with my Sham Wow®, a salve made from the aloe I grew in my Topsy Turvy® Planter.)

But you have to call me in the next twenty minutes.

Speaking of contempt (WHAT. I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME.) and the whole familiarity blah blah blah thing my point is this: I got sick of the cheetah print. (Well OK just for a little while.) And I am sick, sick I tell you, already, of Christmas. I was in October, actually. I have this awful, knotted, gnarled pit in my stomach at the very sight of ornaments and plastic trees and 3-outlet forest green power plug adapters.

However I do like that Eggnog Latte Coffee-Mate® Limited Edition coffee creamer.

It's really, really good. And if you call in the next twenty minutes you'll get...

Anyway, Happy Holidays. Only it's not days, anymore, now is it?

Happy Holi-Months. And to all a good fiscal quarter.

Cows Are Also Really Scary

2010-10-31T13:47:00.003-04:00

So every fall about this time The Wicked Turkey and I say we're going to take the kids to the North Carolina mountains. It's a lovely idea, really--the quaint, quiet mountain cabin, the astonishingly, vibrantly heady fall foliage, the picturesque views from the Blue Ridge Parkway, the glorious solitude of being outside the Sprint network...

I KNOW. You want to go too, now. And so do we. Every year. But the world is a terrible place and there's a war in Afghanistan and it's a three hour drive to the mountains and the economy sucks and someone has strep throat and Haliburton's causing wars and ruining the planet and... OK there's always an excuse.

(Not to mention that the last time I went to the mountains outside of ski season I nearly threw myself in a fit of despair from THIS swinging bridge:)

OK so I'll tell you the story.

It was my birthday. November 6th, 1998. The Wicked Turkey and I had been dating for five years. FIVE YEARS, PEOPLE. We had a house together, had dogs and cats together, had gotten over our mutual incredulity at the oddness of each other's families, and were deep in that nearly flawless period of courtship when He still picks up after himself and buys his own underwear and SHE still wears makeup everyday and pretends to be interested in football. Also: I had moved across the country twice for him. In a nutshell, it was time. TIME, PEOPLE. Johnny had planned a romantic getaway to Grandfather Mountain (pictured above) for my birthday. I had planned on getting a ring. That Ring. So we drive the three hours to Grandfather Mountain and I don't even get carsick because I'm thinking about whether my new diamond will come with a princess or emerald cut. And I don't get even slightly winded climbing the fifty stairs to the mountain's swinging bridge access because I'm debating whether or not to hyphenate my future last name. And I swallow my utter, abject fear of spanning the 228 foot long, perilously swinging, frighteningly narrow MILE HIGH MOTHERFUCKING BRIDGE that was engineered before computers and I end up crossing parts of the bridge in a kind of clutching-the-floorboards-for-dear-life, low-crawl on my belly that looked something like this

except I was wearing MAC not camouflage (courtship days, remember???)--because I was busy imagining how I would say "YES!" without making the ugly-cry face when he popped the question.

But we don't talk about that part. The Becky Is Terrified of Most Things Part. Heights, germs, cockroaches, roller coasters, squirrels, Republicans, Little People, clowns, geese, old people, open closet doors, baby dolls, loud noises, pool drains, the woods, the basement, dark places, and loose or missing teeth.*

*This list is merely a summary. I am also afraid of rejection and criticism and the half-mocking half-incredulous mostly-contemptuous question I almost always receive when people, happening upon my petrification at various things or situations, ask:

"BUT I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN THE ARMY. YOU JUMPED OUT OF AIRPLANES. HOW CAN YOU BE SCARED???"

The Reader's Digest Abridged Version of my official explanation: I was scared. All the time. But I was even more afraid of Failure and of Embarrassing Myself. Also: I typically had, strapped to my person at any given time, an M-16 rifle, a parachute, and hand sanitizer. (The world is a far less scary place when you have these things on quick-deploy.)

SO. Back to the story. It's my birthday and I'm standing on top of a mountain all alone with this man I love more than Texas and Shakespeare and Not Watching Football on this glorious autumn day and I've survived the Certain Death Bridge and I'm totally ready to say I do without making the ugly cry face and IT'S TIME, PEOPLE.

Time. A brilliant, beautiful moment. Everything is perfect and splendid and immaculate and almost holy in its beauty and Johnny, my love, my soon-I-am-sure-to-be-my-fiance gets very still, looks deeply into my eyes, and says, ever so quietly and gently, "Becky...Would you...like to go back down and get some more coffee?"

Yeah. That happened. In real life.

SO. Twelve years later I've got a couple rings on my finger, a wedding dress in the attic, two kids, and an abiding fear of Most Things and even Some New Ones. And I still do the Terrible Ugly Cry Face. Sometimes. But not this weekend, even though Johnny was really mean to me about the packing and I forgot to fill Bridger's prescriptions and the DVD player in the minivan is not working and it turns out Haliburton might have caused the BP oil spill--because WE ARE GOING TO THE MOUNTAINS.

We make the three hour drive. EASY. Johnny even gets the DVD player to work. EASY. I don't even get carsick. We arrive at the quaint, quiet mountain cabin, courtesy of a good and gracious friend who owns the cabin, the surrounding farmland, and apparently half the freaking mountain. Really. We unpack and drive to the crest, get out of the car and absorb the surreal beauty, the glorious leaves, the pastoral landscape unfurling beneath us.

We hike around a bit and I get the FANTASTIC idea that Johnny and Bridger should drive back down to the cabin. Waverly the Fearless and I will hike down on our own and meet them there. EASY. Johnny says it's a short hike through fairly even terrain and I'm all Rocky Mountain High from the sheer beauty of this place except technically I'm Smokey Mountain High but John Denver didn't sing that song and hey--I shop at REI and I'm wearing some rather kick-ass boots so WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

*SPOILER ALERT! The boots were from Nordstrom, not REI and yeah... you can guess where this is going...

*Also--Johnny had to jimmy a barbed-wire cattle fence for Wavy and me climb under in order for us to even begin our "hike"...

*Also--I had no cell phone reception, no M-16, no parachute, and no hand sanitizer.

So Wavy and I begin our hike. We are having a Bonding Experience. We are two fierce, strong, self-reliant Nature Girls wearing really cute boots and--jeggings!

--and we're not afraid to step in --OHMYGOD THAT IS AN AWFULLY BIG COW PATTY.

Yeah.

LOTS of awfully big cow patties.

About a half mile further in it occurs to me that where there are cow patties, there might be cows.

And.....there. One. Is. Up ahead of us on the tip of the hill.

(actual photograph)

And then there's another. And then another. And the OH MY GOD THERE'S LIKE TWENTY OF THEM with their weird hip bones and their twitchy tails and their evil herd mentality and ohmygod they're all looking at us.

I ask Waverly what we should do. (YES, I often defer to the judgement of my five year old when confronted with life's insolvable problems.) "Keep going," she says. "We can walk around them." OK, but I am nervous. There is nothing but farmland in front of us, woods behind us and no one anywhere near who would hear us if we called for help. I only know one way to the cabin, and it is straight ahead, directly through what I'm beginning to think of as The Killing Fields.

(I know, I know. I'm from Texas. Steers and Queers, right? Why should I be afraid of cows? WELL I'LL TELL YOU. I'm from the part of Texas where the largest land animals you'll come across are the people lined up for the Chicken Fried Steak at Luby's Cafeteria)

So the most exposure I've had to cattle in my whole life to this point is the bulls I saw each year at the Texas Prison Rodeo when I was a kid. I AM NOT KIDDING THIS IS A REAL EVENT. Back in the early eighties, before, oh, OSHA and the ACLU and Amnesty International--apparently--they would put forty convicts in an arena with one raging, snorting, bucking, frothing-at-the-mouth wild bull with $50.00 inside of a bag tied between his horns and let the convicts risk life and limb retrieving the money bag for the schadenfreude of hundreds of East Texans. Yes, my parents thought this was appropriate childhood entertainment. No, my sister and I are not scarred by this experience because we were plied into cotton-candy-induced bleary-eyed apathy at the violence and general mayhem involved therein.

So. Here I am, alone on a mountain with my five year old daughter facing SEVERAL bulls. And not one of them has a lootbag tied to his horns and I have no M-16 and sadly, no cotton candy. But I do identify among the herd several nursing mama cows and in the spirit of solidarity hope that they will recognize me as one of their own and therefore will not hurt me or my former nursling and maybe they can convince the calf-daddies to look for some felons to maul.

And then they begin walking towards us. All of them. Fast. In weird evil cow herd unison. Waverly announces--loudly--that she will kill them with her walking stick and then kindly--and loudly--reminds them that she doesn't even eat cow. I look for a rock or stick to defend us with and all I see are cow patties. The cows are coming faster. With determination.

I ask Waverly what we should do.

"RUN!" she says.

But she can't say her R's yet so it sounds more like "ONE!" which normally would be cute but the barbed wire fence we're going to have to scale to escape certain death at the hands (hooves?) of the Angry Cows is really really sharp and really really high and Waverly is really really heavy. We manage after all to cross the field and I toss Waverly over the barbed wire fence to (supposed) safety and realize I cannot scale said fence. These jeggings are from Saks and this fence belongs to some farmer and if I try to climb it I will break it and that would be bad for the farmer and for me, as any breach in the fence could allow passage of the now-stampeding cows into our safe zone. So I dig deep, get brave, channel my formerly (partially) bad-ass GI Jane self and run DIRECTLY TOWARDS the stampeding cows to a tree I may or may not be able to climb to safety.

In my mind this is what I look like.

FREEDOM!

The good news is--I can still climb a tree. I jump from the haven of said tree's branches to the other side of the barbed wire fence much to the relief of my daughter. Who is standing in...

A cow patty.

And I remember. Where there are cow patties there must be cows.

"RUN!"

We run across another field to another barbed wire fence. Jeggings and farmers be damned I'm climbing this bitch. I hoist Wavy over. And in a move even Angelina Jolie's stunt woman would envy, I sling myself over the fence.

Without. Tearing. The jeggings.

It's Cows 0. Wavy and Me 1. The cows do not look pleased.

Now we hike carefully, precariously, down a steep, impossibly narrow trail flanked on one side by Mean Bessie and Her Cohorts, the other side by a sheer drop-off to a rocky gully far below us.

And then we hear something. Music. Faint at first and then growing louder. Dueling Banjos? No. Because THAT WOULD BE TOO EASY. What we are hearing is, ostensibly, an intoxicated Person of Spanish Linguistic Ability serenading (and belching at) the mountainside at the top of his ever loving lungs. We are only mildly comforted by his presence because we have watched enough Dora and Diego to cry for help in Spanish however, our amigo sounds a bit too inebriated to al rescate us and I'm pretty sure he's missing his Rescue Pack.

Yeah.

We choose to keep our presence hidden from the mountain people and continue to the cabin.

I still don't see the cabin.

We are far, far removed from English-speaking human contact.

There is an entire herd of cattle on the other side of the fence bent on our certain demise.

We have an awful lot of cow poop on our fancy boots.

I have neither water nor food nor emergency flares nor anything else one would pack in the REI backpack I've been eyeing.

And I am most likely tetanus-positive at this point from the barbed wire fences I've scaled.

And it is at this very moment that Waverly announces, "I need to go potty. BAD."

...

AFTERWORD

We lived. But barely. We finally made it back to the cabin, which, thank GOD, had a washer and dryer. However it was in the basement which I was afraid of so Johnny had to do all the cow poop laundry.

I never succeeded in convincing Waverly to pee in the woods. She was like, "OK, if you do it with me." And I was like, "No."

Johnny would like you all to know that he did not intentionally send Waverly and me to our near deaths. He would like to remind you that he grew up in the kind of family that greased pigs for the chasing at family gatherings and therefore has a much higher tolerance for domesticated farm animals than I and had no idea I would be scared of the cows because, you know, I was in the Army.

Upon returning to Cary I used my member rewards at REI to buy some actual hiking boots, an emergency beacon, and a handheld GPS. I am still searching the internet for cow repellant.

Sprint continues to offer the good people of western North Carolina no service at all, which is pretty much the same service it offers to the people of Central and Eastern North Carolina, which is no service at all. Halliburton continues to club baby seals and slap orphans and contaminate baby formula with...cow poop.

We never heard anything more from our Mountain Mariachi. I think of him fondly and hope he is well.

Mean Bessie and her band of Mean Cohorts abide.

THE END.

Back On the Bike, Y'all

2010-09-30T17:23:00.002-04:00

(Oops. Almost titled this post "Beck on the Bike." Which would be glorious if it were David Beckam but quite unfortunate of it were that monstrosity Glenn Beck.)

THIS:

OR THIS:

YOU CHOOSE. YOU DECIDE.

In any case, apologies, all, for my hiatus!

And now:

COMING SOON...

"What Happened at the Mammography Clinic"

"Two Teachers, a Preacher, and a Stay-At-Home-Mom Walk Into a Tattoo Parlor..."

"Sign Ideas for Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity"

"Contents of My Purse From Last Night"

But for now...

Bridger came home from school today with an essay about the four best things that ever happened to him and the four worst things that ever happened to him. In other words, while I'm freaking about the cost of his prescriptions I get some real perspective:

THE GOOD

1. Christmas

2. Halloween

3. My Birthday

4. I got a new dog named Aslan.

The Bad

1. Afghanistan war

2. My Uncle Ryan got cancer.

3. My best friend moved.

4. My dog Teton died.

Sniffle.

Absence Make the Heart Grow Fatter, or, Home Sweet Illiterate Vacation Home

2010-07-14T16:12:00.012-04:00

So I'm back from a long weekend at Harkers Island and all I can say is Home Sweet (high ceiling, open floor plan, more-bathrooms-in-it-than-people-living-in-it) Home.

(OK that might have been one of the most obnoxious sentences I've ever written. Some people live in the BOXES they fish from grocery store dumpsters. And not even the General Mills boxes, which are corrugated and somewhat weatherproof, but the Piggly Wiggly cereal boxes made from tissue paper and flour paste that dissolve into a sticky paste when rained upon. So I should SHUT UP NOW AND BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT I HAVE.)

And I am. Grateful. But do you have any idea how long I'm going to have to wear THIS metal bikini before Master Luke shows up to renegotiate my mortgage with Jabba the Hut?

DO YOU?

Anyway Northern and Western readers if you MUST know Piggly Wiggly is the most ghetto-trashy of all ghetto-trash grocery stores. Apologies to my good friends at Living Without Walmart but Piggly Wiggly is the baddest (and I don't mean Michael Jackson bad) of all bad food-buying experiences. THIS is where the country people go to buy fatback and pickled pigs feet. Every single item in that store contains either multi-mega-hyper-global-transgendered-transatlantic-transform your muscle tone into cellultite- transfats OR morally-ethically-spiritually-physically-positively-absolutely-undeniably-partially hydrogenated oils!

That Piggle will make yo ass jiggle. They should have named that store Piggly Jiggly.

(More on Horrible Ideas in Branding in another post. Seriously? Who thought squirming swine made for a good corporate identity? WOW.)

ALSO: their logo. (What is that hat?)

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home. This little piggy went to his day job as a country store butcher and chopped his brothers and sisters into pork chops and bacon ALL THE WAY HOME.

(OK this really wasn't supposed to be a post about how much I dislike Piggly Wiggly.)

So I'm at the Piggly Wiggly in Beafort...because there are no grocery stores on Harkers Island. That's part of its charm. Along with the fact that NOT ONE RESTAURANT ON THE ENTIRE ISLAND HAS A LIQUOR LICENSE. But the hush puppies are good and it is pretty much bereft of tourists so all in all it's not a terrible place,

unless you haven't had your coffee...

and well, actually, we love it there. It's small, it's quaint, it's where we go whenever we can get away from The Big Town of Raleigh. Among its many charms Harkers Island is known for its quietude, the craftsmanship of its hand carved duck decoys (not a joke), its long history of boatbuilding, and its particular brogue. Even amongst the nearly-indecipherable Down Easters (the good folks of the Southern Outer Banks) the Hoi Toiders (as they are known) are a rare (in)breed and known for the peculiarity of their accents.

Also: their mad English Spelling and Usage skills.

Spotted just this last weekend:

On a placard advertising a church fundraiser breakfast: "Pancakes and Bisquits". (I assume they're made with Bisquick?)
On a hand painted sign in someone's front yard: "Obamacare Will Rationalize Cancer Care to the Elderly. Fire the Democrats!" (Because the last things seniors can handle is a bunch of rationalizing. You can't justify anything to those people.)
"Far Wood 4 Sale" (Yeah I don't need to say anything at all here do I?)

And don't even get me started on the overabundance of apostrophes in this town. The island is positively INFESTED. I have notified the Army Corps of Engineers AND the USDA and so far no one shares the urgency of my sense of doom. I'm like Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day trying to convince the President that ALIENS ARE POISED AT THIS VERY MOMENT TO INVADE THE PLANET. Decoy-carving unintelligible teetotalling Republican aliens with fifth grade educations who can't write the letter S without apostrophying it from every angle! It's punctuation anarchy!

Wanna know what's funny / ironic / serendipitous? There's no apostrophe in Harkers Island.

(Also: if you scour this post thoroughly enought you will find at least fourteen errors in usage, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I like to sprinkle these here and there just to fuck with all of you. It's like Where's Waldo only even nerdier. PLEASE, write to me about them. I absolutely LOVE to be corrected.)

Because really, what else do I have to complain about?

Of Balls and Boobies, or, What Not to Bring to a Mammogram

2010-07-07T21:37:00.013-04:00

WARNING: This Post Contains Too Much Information

So…this is actually happening. There is a golf ball in my left breast. This is especially alarming as that particular breast is only tennis ball sized in the first place and why am I referring to it singularly as if they’re both not the same size?  Like the other one could actually be, like, football sized?  BUT OH WAIT! 1) I nursed two children into adulthood. Bridger had a beard before he finally weaned. 2) Waverly was a lefty not a switch hitter (nursing mamas you know what I'm talking about). So basically, in the breast department I'm batting 1000 with one softball and one baseball--a statistic I've calculated on the grounds that back when the boobies were still perfect they helped land me a really fantastic husband and that my kids have never even had ONE ear infection and their brains are just HUGE from all that breastmilk (which is evidenced by the size of their abnormally large craniums--those kids have noggins like basketballs!) and I can’t even properly throw a ball so where are these sports analogies even coming from and also: THE 2010 WORLD CUP IS AFOOT, BITCHES! Also: Tour De France.   Rhymes with LANCE!

This series of events, which are only fortunate if you enjoy soccer, cycling, AND teeing off from my ribcage and are only possible in July of every fourth year leads me to two conclusions: 1) I'm going to have a mammogram. That golf ball probably shouldn’t be in there. (I believe there's a Tiger Wood joke lurking nearbouts and if I think of it I'll let you know but all I can think of right now is Fergie singing "my lovely lady lumps") and 2) I really need a vuvuzela. OR cowbell. Or whatever those crazy Frenchmen use to cheer on the Tour. (Sometimes they actually run naked alongside the peleton. I am going to have to get naked enough for this mammogram so I think I'll have to pass on THAT particular indignity.) In fact, I would like to take my vuvuzela / cowbell with me to the mammogram. Which is at Duke. TOMORROW. And I can annoy the SHIT out of those pretentious Duke doctors with their terrible Duke frowns and their terrible Duke nostrils and their terrible Duke football program.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!

(But I’m not thinking about that because as we speak England is being made naked by the Germans and this time Winston Churchill is nowhere to be found and in a fascinating if not serendipitous accident of providence the US is out of the war, having been defeated by some…Africans. Oh the irony! Oh the kismet!)

(OK I started this post a week or more ago. By now Spain and Netherlands rule the world. Little has changed in 500 years. Colonialism waxes eternal.)

In any case you shouldn't worry. Spain will defeat the Netherlands, Contador will (I hate to admit it) beat Armstrong, and I will get my boobie pancaked, nay, tortillad, tomorrow afternoon. In fact, you won't have to miss ANY of the action. World Cup and the Tour will be broadcast in all their resplendent glory 'cross television sets across the land and I will be live-tweeting my mammogram (!). EVERY SQUISHY DETAIL!

In honor of the Tour (and to mitigate my fear of what exactly is growing inside my breast which I am not thinking about LANCE LANCE LANCE) I might even ride my bike to the hospital. It will be the Tour de Triangle. I'll start out riding the Raleigh stage, scenic only in its view of Midtown shopping centers and a desparate suburbia but deadly in its threat of Northern-transplant Volvo drivers and Nascar-wannabe mullethead Camaro speedsters. The Raleigh stage being only slightly less hazard-prone than the final stage, Durham, with its fine ghetto views and haphazard gunfire but ending in the award of a jersey in any color but red, blue, black, white, or gold WHICH WILL ALL GET YOU CLIPPED, YO, and a successful entry into the Duke campus which is only slightly more segregated / innoculated against its encroaching blackness than Washington D.C.

There.

OK maybe I should drive there, because the only thing less dignified than being carjacked is being bike-jacked. And both are equally probable in our fine sister city of Durham. By which I mean red headed stepsister city. I feel bad for Durham, really. I think someday that they, and Ft. Worth, Urbana, and St. Paul should all get together and start some kind of civil rights movement for under-recognized twin cities. Parasitic or not. We shall overcome.

So I think I'll wear green to Duke tomorrow. The maillot vert, in hopes that this journey of mine is just a sprint and not a Grand Tour. The one with pockets big enough for my noisemakers and Tarheel pompoms.  Because I plan on winning.

Dear Becky: An Open Letter From the Mass In Your Left Breast

2010-05-14T12:06:00.004-04:00

May 14, 2010
In Response to Your Letter: To the Trespasser Inside My Left Breast

Dear Becky,

First, we'd like thank you for your hospitality. Your temperate 98.6 degree environment has suited us perfectly, as has the nourishment provided by your steady diet of sugar, caffeine and alcohol. (Some members of our faction would have you know that they prefer Malbec to Merlot, but we digress.) Furthermore, the days you go braless provide us much amusement. It's like a fun park ride in here. (Some members of our faction would like to make you aware of their tendency toward motion sickness. They recommend La Perla Intimates [available at Nordstrom] or the Spanx Bra-llelujah.)

Secondly, we'd like to inform you that we are of peace, always. (That's right. We can hear everything in here. That V show on TV is awesome! Tell us, do you think the lizard baby birth scene will be as good as the 1980's version?) (Some members of our faction kindly ask that you stop Tivo-ing True Blood. We hate those fake southern accents.) (Also, we really enjoy Grey's Anatomy. When the brave doctors discover a Hail Mary miracle cure for some kid with cancer your resulting crying-provoked estrogen rush is positively exhilarating. We're STILL talking about the one where the mother AND the baby die in childbirth.)

Our point is, we mean you no harm. We don't even know how we got here, nor do we fully understand this biological imperative to reproduce uncontrollably. (We're kind of like teenagers that way. Really, we just want to crash on your couch for a little bit. All this reproduction is EXHAUSTING.) And like teenagers, we really don't fully understand who we are quite yet. Remember when we watched The Matrix on USA a couple weeks back? We might perceive, like you, that we're an invasive, uncontrollable mass of ever-replicating cells with an undeniable compulsion to invade adjacent tissues, wreak havoc on all your organ systems and, ultimately, eradicate you. (No offense. We kind of like you.) But the reality might very well be that we've been duped by a race of all-powerful, artificially intelligent machines (i.e., the WebMD symptom checker) and that we're actually just a hormone-provoked cyst that will dissipate of its own volition in about two weeks. (Yes, we heard you doctor's explanation. She's a regular Morpheus, isn't she?)

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself in your upcoming mammogram. (Which, by the way, we are REALLY not looking forward to. We hear they're even more constricting than your sports bra.)

Until then, good hostess, we suggest avoiding caffeine, your husband, lying on your stomach, and running up and down the stairs with your usual vigor.

Also, we have requests from several among us that you start watching Glee. We hear it's freakin' HILARIOUS.

Affectionately and Indefinitely Yours,
The Goodwill Ambassadors of the Breast Mass of Questionable Significance

To the Trespasser Inside My Left Breast

2010-05-13T11:00:00.002-04:00

Good morning, intruder. I cannot blame you for your choice of abode. It's warm and soft and nourishing there. My babies would tell you the same.

I would like to start out by informing you that you are not welcome here. (This is difficult for me to state, as I am genuinely a very hospitable person and absolutely LOVE having company.) I am truly sorry if I misled you in any way into thinking that I would house or foster you. Yes, I have often complained about the size and condition of my breasts and have even considered an addition or remodel.  This occasional dissatisfaction does not mean, though, that said real estate is available for sale, rent, or occupation.  (To be quite honest, I've never had a roomate or a parasite and do not wish for either now. )

You should have received your eviction papers by now. Yet you persist in your tenancy!

I would ask, regardless, that the members of your clan (which incidently seem to be growing)  refrain from traveling from their current location. I warn you: the lymph node in my armpit may seem to be a desireable travel destination but is positively Syrian in its concurrent beauty and propensity to violence (my white cells: terrorists!) and so I inform you that you are banned from travel there and am, in fact, revoking your passport.

I should also make a special announcement that your continued presence in what my children affectionately refer to as my Nanas may result in your being needle aspirated, cultured, squashed in mammography, irradiated, poisoned, or EXCISED.

Also: I reject your claim that I have judged you (and harshly) without even getting to know you. No, I do not know whether you are benign or malignant. I DON'T REALLY CARE. You may call me a cell-ist if that makes you feel better about yourself.  I am not. In fact, some of my best friends are cells or some combination thereof. I am particularly fond of neurons and zygotes. And it is common knowledge that amoeba babies are ADORABLE.

Again I apologize. I am usually a kind person, given neither to violence nor threats of such. But I will deport you like an Arizona Mexican. Consider yourself warned.

I should wrap this up as I have to get off to the doctor's office. But just to recap, I am asking you, little tangled knot of cells, to cease and desist in an immediate fashion.

Yours Truly and Temporarily,
Becky

A Baby Story: Facebook Edition

2010-05-09T09:49:00.004-04:00

Becky Pennington met a really cute boy tonight.
Sept. 18, 1993 at 7:32 pm

Becky Pennington is now friends with Johnny Powell
Sept. 19, 1993 at 9:32 am

Johnny Powell changed his employer to 82nd Airborne
Dec. 14, 1993 at 6:00 am

Johnny Powell likes Wilmington, Isuzu Troopers, and Off Post Passes.
February 28, 1994 at 7:32 pm

Becky Pennington and Johnny Powell are in a relationship.
March 23, 1994 at 11:43 am

Becky Pennington became a fan of Living Happily Ever After.
March 30, 1994 at 3:56 pm

Johnny Powell became a fan of Temporary Relationships.
February 2, 1996 at 4:32 pm

Becky Pennington changed her current city to Dallas, TX.
May 12, 1997 at 5:39 pm

Johnny Powell changed his current city to Raleigh, NC.
May13, 1997 at 5:00 pm

Becky Pennington Four years, people! Seriously, what is wrong with him?
May 14, 1997 at 5:48 pm

Johnny Powell really misses Becky
October 16, 1997 at 9:12 am
     Becky Pennington Miss you too, babe!

Becky Pennington changed her current city to Raleigh, NC
Dec. 31, 1997 at 10:43 pm
     Johnny Powell likes this.

Becky Pennington OMG! HE ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM!
Dec. 25, 1998 at 10:27 am
     Barbara Pennington, Jenny Pennington, and 64 others like this.

Becky Pennington, Johnny Powell, and 250 others are attending Johnny and Becky’s Wedding.

Becky Pennington Powell and Johnny Powell changed their relationship status to Married.
May 20, 2000 at 6:00 pm

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of EPT Early Pregnancy Tests
May 14, 2002 at 6:48 am

Becky Pennington Powell has some exciting news to share!
May 14, 2002 at 6:53 am

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Not Throwing Up.
May 20, 2002 at 7:04 am

Becky Pennington Powell OH MY GOD MY BOOBS ARE HUGE!
May 22, 2002 at 7:17 am

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Nurse Midwives
June 1, 2002 at 1:40 pm

Becky Pennington Powell NOM NOM NOM! These raw tomatoes are to DIE for! ZOMG!
June 1, 2002 at 3:40 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Morning Sickness. It's not just for mornings anymore. FML.
June 4, 2002 at 4:22 pm

Becky Pennington Powell is now friends with Mary David Asheborough, Certified Nurse Midwife
June 6, 2002 at 1:41 pm

Becky Pennington Powell According to the ultrasound, I'm having the lizard baby from V. FTW!
June 14, 2002 at 12:32 pm

Becky Pennington Powell at Indigo Girls with Jenny Pennington. FACT: the lines for the ladies' rooms at Indigo Girls concerts are REALLY long. Those Lesbians are really nice, though, and will let pregnant women straight to the front of the line.
July 6, 2002 at 9:46 pm

Becky Pennington Powell joined the group The Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth
Sept. 17, 2002 at 2:17 pm
    Mary Catherine Schmilley You are CRAZY!
     Allie Carter MayfairYou’re gonna want an epidural. Trust me lolz!
     Meghan Smith Rider SRSLY?
     Kelly Rogers Why would you want to do that? I say give me the drugs lol!
     Laura Thomas ROFLMAO!

Becky Pennington Powell I refuse to wear maternity underwear. I say this with resolve and aplomb.
Oct, 14, 2002 at 9:18 am

Johnny Powell My wife is the cutest pregnant girl ever.
Oct. 14, 2002 at 10:16 am

Becky Pennington Powell Dear Lord, please let me get through finals and Christmas before this baby comes. PLZOKTHX.
Nov. 16, 2002 at 4:56 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Wow. Nursing bras are kinky. They've got trap door flaps for easy access. I should have bought some of these a LONG time ago.
Nov. 16, 2002 at 4:56 pm
      Johnny Powell likes this

Johnny Powell learned what Kegels are tonight. Also, that women can stop their pee stream WITHOUT using their hands.
     Dec. 2, 1002 at 9:13 pm
      Jenny Pennington Ahahahahaha!

Becky Pennington Powell People do NOT think it's funny when they ask you when you're due and you say "today." (I'm actually not) In fact they kind of freak out.
Dec. 20, 2002 at 4:52 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Exactly WHAT is the mucous plug supposed to look like? (TMI? Sorry, Dad.)
January 2, 2003 at 6:36 am

Becky Pennington Powell IT’S HAPPENING!
January 7, 2003 at 4:32 am
      Barbara Pennington likes this

Becky Pennington Powell : Johnny Powell You might want to come home. :)
January 7, 2003 at 2:01 pm
     Johnny Powell Really?

Johnny Powell is going to be a Daddy soon!
January 7, 2003 at 2:03 pm
     Tom Pennington likes this

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Hershey’s Kisses and The Sopranos Season Two on DVD
January 7, 2003 at 4:38 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Waterfalls, magnificent sunlit gardens, flowers opening. Ohmmmm….
January 7, 2003 at 5:16 pm

Becky Pennington Powell OK this hurts.
January 7, 2003 at 5:41 pm

Becky Pennington Powell I am powerful!
January 7, 2003 at 5:46 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Heeeeggg.
January 7, 2003 at 5:59 pm

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Not Throwing Up Hershey’s Kisses
January 7, 2003 at 6:21 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Errgh. Gar.
January 7, 2003 at 6:49 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Isn’t time to go the hospital yet? This is starting to get REALLY uncomfortable.
January 7, 2003 at 7:01 pm
     Johnny Powell You’re not going to be any more comfortable at the hospital, honey.
     Becky Pennington Powell I dislike you intensely.

Becky Pennington Powell OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
January 7, 2003 at 7:11 pm

Becky Pennington Powell is in the bathtub. Wow, this warm water feels SOOOOOOOO good! I could just stay in here my whole labor. I could totally give birth RIGHT HERE.
January 7, 2003 at 8:22 pm

Becky Pennington Powell is at Rex Hospital
January 7, 2003 at 8:56 pm

Johnny Powell Contractions are three minutes apart. She’s totally having this baby before midnight. Wish us luck!
January 7, 2003 at 9:06 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Contractions three minutes apart! I’ve got to be at least six centimeters by now. Hang on…WOW that was a rough one. I almost had to sit down for a second there.
January 7, 2003 at 9:06 pm

Becky Pennington Powell Can you BELIEVE they expect me to fill out hospital forms WHILE I’M IN LABOR? I’m writing out my insurance information and BAM! Another contraction!
January 7, 2003 at 9:23 pm

Becky Pennington Powell They are going to be SO SORRY if I pop this baby out right here in triage. LOL.
January 7, 2003 at 9:34 pm

Becky Pennington Powell ONE CENTIMETER. SERIOUSLY? 16 HOURS OF LABOR AND ONLY ONE EFFING CENTIMETER? PRETTY SURE I WAS AT ONE CENTIMETER BEFORE I EVER EVEN GOT PREGNANT!
January 7, 2003 at 9:54 pm

Becky Pennington Powell OWW OWW OWWW FUUUUUUUUCK!
January 7, 2003 at 10:04 pm
Johnny Powell became a fan of Doulas and Labor Nurses.
January 7, 2003 at 10:07 pm

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Pacing, Rocking, Squatting, and four other profiles.
January 7, 2003 at 10:11 pm

Becky Pennington Powell GARRRRR OM OM OM OH OH!
January 7, 2003 at 10:48 pm

Johnny Powell I don’t know the woman in this room. Can I have my wife back please?
January 7, 2003 at 10:51 pm

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Vomit Trays.
January 7, 2003 at 11:07 pm

Becky Pennington Powell THE BIRTHING BALL! SOMEONE GET ME THE EFFING BIRTHING BALL!
January 7, 2003 at 11:29 pm

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of walking during labor.
Jan. 7, 2003 at 11:46 pm

Becky Pennington Powell They should really do something about the wallpaper in these hallwa.....OW OWW HRMMMMMMM...
Jan. 8, 2003 at 12:01 am

Becky Pennington Powell WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE TURN OFF THAT GODAWFUL MUSIC?
Jan. 8, 2003 at 12:49 am
    Johnny Powell It’s the CD we made for your labor, honey? Remember?
     Becky Pennington Powell I will kill you.

Becky Pennington Powell OWW OWW OWWW FUUUUUUUUCK!
Jan. 8, 2003 at 12:51am

Becky Pennington Powell OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL?
Jan. 8, 2003 at 1:38 am

Johnny Powell What’s the best way to dispose of those calming lavender-scented pillow thingies? (I’m askin’ for a friend.)
Jan. 8, 2003 at 1:39 am

Becky Pennington Powell AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!
Jan. 8, 2003 at 2:34 am

Johnny Powell became a fan of Epidurals.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 2:37 am
     Becky Pennington Powell I CAN DO THIS I CAN TOTALLY DO THIS JUST RUB MY BACK I NEED TO GET IN THE  SHOWER AGAIN OH MY GOD IS THERE SUPPOSED TO BE THIS MUCH BLOOD SOMEBODY GET ME A ROCKING CHAIR I NEED A ROCKING CHAIR NOW!
Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Absolute Silence from Everyone in the Room During Contractions.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 4:29 am

Johnny Powell Somebody bring me some food? Please? Becks won’t let me leave the room and we’ve been here 9 hours. THX.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 6:19 am
     Ryan Anderson On my way with some Bojangles, dude.

Becky Pennington Powell WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT HORRIBLE SMELL? GET THAT OUT OF HERE! WHERE IS MY VOMIT PAN?
Jan. 8, 2003 at 7:14 am
     Johnny Powell *sorry*

Jenny Pennington is at Rex Hospital
Jan. 8, 2003 at 7:29 am

Becky Pennington Powell IS ONLY AT FOUR CENTIMETERS! WTF?
Jan. 8, 2003 at 8:37 am

Becky Pennington Powell joined the group Laboring Mothers Who Have to Have Pitocin and Having Your Water Broken to Speed Up Labor
Jan. 8, 2003 at 9:14 am
    Becky Pennington Powell dislikes this. :(

Barbara Pennington is at Rex Hospital
Jan. 8, 2003 at 9:27 am

Becky Pennington Powell THAT IS NOT PITOCIN THAT IS RAT POISON. I AM DYING. SOMEONE CALL PETA.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 10:01 am

Becky Pennington Powell : Johnny Powell I want to go home! Can we just stop this? Seriously let’s just go home. I can’t handle this anymore.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 10:37 am

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Holding On To Johnny’s Arm For Dear Life and Trying To Climb Up Johnny To Get Away From The Pain
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:32 am

Becky Pennington Powell HEE HEE WHOO! HEE HEE WHOO! HEE HEE WHOO!
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:37 am

Becky Pennington Powell joined the group Transition.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:38 am

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of The Fetal Position.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:40 am

Becky Pennington Powell UNNNJGH UIOOOOO GARRRRR!!!!!!!
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:41am

Becky Pennington Powell I NEED TO PUSH I HAVE TO PUSH
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:46 am
     Mary Davis Asheborough oh no you don’t.
     Becky Pennington Powell SRSLY?

Becky Pennington Powell glabble abble jarg boo dammkafarratiknon rep ping harpeleglegleglegl!!
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:48 am

Becky Pennington Powell became a fan of Not Dying In Childbirth.
Jan. 8, 2003 at 11:56 am

Mary David Asheborough It’s time. It’s now. Big pushes.
Jan. 8, 2003 12:10 pm

Johnny Powell PUUUUUSH! PUSH! BABY PUSH!
Jan. 8, 2003 12:18 pm

Bridger Banks Powell joined Facebook.
Jan. 8, 2003 12:32 pm

The Minivan Chronicles: Episode 4

2010-05-06T09:53:00.007-04:00

(I know, I'm totally getting all George Lucas on you with this Episode Four thing but I'm pretty sure given my history with all things automotive that I'll be writing some prequels at some point in the future. Trust me, YOU CAN'T WAIT for The Minivan Strikes Back.)

So I finally got it. The new minivan that I've waited six months, one Suburban and one Land Rover for. It's a good minivan...it's peppy, it's roomy, and it even has--wait for it--a VCR in it. (I KNOW! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?) (BTW if you know where to buy VHS movies shoot me an email. I imagine they're at the same store with the telegraph machines) I suspect it has powers that even I am not aware of, as Bridger has taken to calling it the Secret Agent Super Ultra Megavan.

Well I've had it for about two weeks and weird shit starts happening. Like the Dark Side put the force choke on my emergency brake, for starters, because I'm driving around Cary and I notice this terrible burning smell and of course I blame it on the Volvo in front of me (I dislike Volvos. This will all be explained in Episode Three: Revenge of the Nissan). And then I notice it again and as there are no Volvos anywhere in sight a tiny seed takes root in my mind that it might be me but I'm on my way to the mall and I'm NOT pulling over.

OK now I see smoke in my rearview mirror. This is not good. I have to pull over in front of REI. (WHY couldn't I have made it to Nordstrom? The Force is obviously not with me this day.)

So I'm parked in a lot between REI and Dick's Sporting Goods--not a bad place to be if you're sporting a miniskirt AND your new, ROCKING 4" heeled platform sandals AND your car seems to be on fire. One would think. Well, not one freaking knight, Jedi or otherwise, comes to my rescue. At this point smoke is POURING out of my rear wheel well. I think this is close to where the gas tank might be and I realize that I may have moved out of damsel-in-distress mode into full-on HAZMAT threat.

I step away from the vehicle. FAR away. I debate whether to call Johnny or the Cary Fire Department. I have had enough run-ins with the Cary F.D. to know that they might not see the humor in this situation. The Wicked Turkey, though, is always good for a laugh so I call him first.

"Honey?"
"What's up I'm in an attic. Make it quick." (JP is a heating and air guy. I like to say he heats and cools the Earth like the guy in the Jimmy Dean commercials? Anyway he gets a little short when working in 120 degree attics. You understand.)
"Umm...I think my car is on fire."
(Dead silence.)
"You're shitting me."
"Umm, what's the chance that my gas tank might explode?"
"I'm on my way."

I decide that the parking lot is unsafe at this point and decide to take cover in REI. That store is actually REALLY neat. They will even let you get IN the kayaks, but they won't laugh when you start singing "I'm on a BOAT, look at me I'm on a motherfucking BOAT!" In fact, the store manager will ask you to leave. If you apologize sincerely and inform him that your car is presently on fire, though, he will let you stay.

(By the time Johnny got there I'd found a new sunhat, BPA-free water bottles for the whole family, and two really cute Coolmax® moisture wicking sundresses. NOT that I sweat. EVER. It's just nice to have spill-proof clothing. Anyway. Shopping WIN. Mission accomplished.)

JP arrives on the scene. The car has stopped smoking at this point. He takes a quick look underneath the wheel thingies and then we take a drive around the parking lot to see if it happens again.

Nothing happens. No smoke, no burning smell. He draws my attention to the emergency brake handle. Him: "What's the chance that you've been driving around with this *up*? Tell me the truth." Me: "Ummmm..."

Disaster averted.

(By the way I'm pretty sure I'm responsible for the whole Toyota debacle. I owned a Toyota once and it's common knowledge that I destroy every car I drive. I just didn't know my powers extended to an entire manufacturer. I think I should be recalled.)

ADHDEFG

2010-04-09T19:59:00.018-04:00

(Preface: In March of 2010 my brilliant and charming, twitchy, ticky, sweetly scattered mess of a boy was diagnosed with ADHD. During his two week long evalation which involved a psychologist, a pediatrician, both his teachers, both his parents, and a battery of testing and questionnaires, The Wicked Turkey and I came to the conclusion that we, too, may suffer from LOOK. A BUTTERFLY. HAVE YOU SEEN MY KEYS?)

Well, we got it.

That paradigm, that holy grail of parenthood. It is wondrous and sacred and we call it Minivan. It is AWESOME, and, as I have discovered, even MORE sexy when you blast Ke$ha from the speakers with the windows rolled down. It has a DVD player, power doors, and working brakes--but it seems to be missing...something. GPS? XM radio? (Well, yes.) But what it really lacks are STICKERS. Suburban Mom Stickers. Personalized stickers for each member of the family. Have you seen these? Businessman Dad, Preggers Mom, Soccer Player Son, Ballerina Daughter, Two Random Dogs?

We looked for some for our family. Dad in La-Z-Boy with One Hand on Beer, One Hand Down Pants; Crying Mommy with Bad Hair and Prescription Bottle; Hockey Player Son Being Choked Out By Willful Four Year Old Daughter With Anger Management Issues; Large Dog Ass-Humping Smaller Dog. WELL THEY DON'T MAKE THOSE. (Graphic artist readers: please design some for me STAT.)

Stickers for each and every one of our hobbies. Stickers that convey with sass and wit my positions on abortion, climate change, the president, and various constitutional rights. (Habeus Corpus doesn't relieve people from unlawful detention. PEOPLE relieve people from unlawful detention!) Stickers for the kids' school. Stickers informing you that my pregnant, meth-addicted teenage daughter can beat up your honor student. And most importantly, the (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbon decal.

Apparently, the (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbon decal is JUST as necessary to the proper functioning of the minivan as engine oil and a steering wheel. Without one, transmissions jump, engines stall, batteries die, and the tailgating denizens of greater suburbia honk away at their horns with neither focus nor awareness as they have no idea what disorder the DVD-watching child seated within the minivan in front of them might suffer from.

Fact: (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbon decals come in a wide array of colors. Pick a cause, any cause. You can even color coordinate your cause with the paint color of your minivan. A blue awareness ribbon, for instance, looks especially nice against a silver paint job (especially if you're a Cowboys fan) and will signal to the driver behind you that you intend to aware the SHIT out of Tuberous Sclerosis, sex trafficking, prostate cancer, Teletubbies, visible pantilines, and Rodents of Unusual Size.

Can't choose a cause? I understand. Choosing a (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbon can be almost as nerve wracking as choosing a tattoo. But you, my friend, can switch out your (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbons as often as you change your oil. Ever hear of the Awareness Ribbon of the Month Club? Me neither. But you can imagine getting a BRAND NEW (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbon *twelve!* DID YOU HEAR ME TWELVE! times a year? You can collect ALL THE FLAVORS. Cancer! Incest! Death by Road Rage! Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation! IF YOU CAN THINK IT YOU CAN HAVE IT ON A RIBBON SHAPED MOTHERFUCKING CAR STICKER!

Which leads me to my own quandary. (OK I have egads of quandaries. This is just one.) With which (Fill In the Blank) Awareness Ribbon do I christen my minivan? I believe there must be some qualifications:

A) Is the color representing the proposed cause objectionable or unflattering? Purple is totally gay and red washes me out, so...sorry, Aids babies and Alzheimer's WHAT. WHO ARE YOU? WHERE AM I?

B) Is anyone going to key my car in righteous indignance over the cause represented by said ribbon? Agoraphobia makes some people REALLY angry. No teal ribbon for me.

C) Does anyone in my immediate family suffer from a lack of awareness about their own peculiar condition? In that case, I'll need a ribbons for Thin Eyelash Awareness, Survivors of East Texan Asphalt Childhood Foot Trauma, and Germaphobe Protection from Microbes in General and Toilet Flush Handles Particularly. Because SERIOUSLY. Dude. Everyone knows about breast cancer. Few people, however, are aware of how freaking hot asphalt can get in the summer in Texas. (It melts. You can't even play basketball on it--your ball will not bounce but WILL STICK TO the pavement and quite possibly become a part of it. AND. Your shoes! Sneakers, jellies, flip-flops, WHATEVER. Upon contact with the searing asphalt they can and will melt immediately into said asphalt, fast securing your feet to the parking lot, fixing you permanently and instantly turning your entire body into an asphalt statue. Parking lots in Texas are positively LITTERED with little kid pavement statues. It's horrifying.)

The aforementioned terms considered, debated internally, and decided upon leave me but one choice.

Yes. The Boy has it. Orange favors my olive complexion. Probably no one hates 99% of kids enough to key my car in objection to my support of 99% of kids. (WHAT. ADHD IS REAL.) And...surely, not enough people in this country are aware that 99% of kids can't sit still or pay attenion.

An Awareness Ribbon is clearly called for.

I Google up to order one pronto. But LOOK AT THAT SUSPICIOUS MOLE ON MY KNEE! WebMD beckons! But first I need a Coke! They're in the fridge in the garage. Wow does it EVER need cleaning! But the cleaning products are in the kitchen! Which reminds me, I need to figure out tonight's dinner and my, that window has finger prints all over it and OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THAT BUTTERFLY.

Decaffeinated

2010-04-04T18:21:00.004-04:00

So I'm at the beach house with the in-laws and today--day three--I hit a wall. Not in anger or frustration, although that would be understandable because the in-laws are narcoleptic, alzheimer-ridden control-freaks with an aversion to hearing aids. WHAT. No. I hit a wall because apparently, SOMEONE (read: mother-in-law) has been making decaf coffee unbenownst to anyone else here and passing it off as actual coffee. I guess that would explain the narcolepsy. And the headaches. And my ill mood. This morning at the beach this interchange actually took place:

Redneck Dude in homemade boat with tattered travesty of an American flag fluttering listlessly from one of the downriggers beaches his boat.

Me: DUDE. Are you American? I've seen Jihadists treat the flag with more respect than that.

Redneck Dude's white trash drunken girl friend falls off the boat, proceeds to squat and without her ass even being entirely covered by the water proceeds to pee in about 18 inches of tide.

This infuriates me beyond the pale. I try to sick my dog on them, but he is a pathetic Retriever and only manages to get ass-humped by the Chocolate Lab twenty feet up the beach. He comes back with a mouth full of seaweed and drops it at my feet. I tell him he should be ashamed of himself, as no self-respecting dog should allow that kind of behavior until at least the third date.

I have no idea why I'm so irritable. I'm at a gorgeous beach; it's a beautiful day. I have my kids and my husband and my dog and a good book.

I tell JP that if the woman sitting in the beach chair next to me had spent as much money on a nutritionist for her obese child as she had for her fake breasts she could have prevented a certain lifetime of bullying, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Oh well. Single moms with fat kids have to compensate somehow.

I am an evil person.

Back at the beach house, I go for more coffee. The pot is empty. I go to make more but can't find coffee beans anywhere. Just this dirt-like substance in a green can. I think they call it decaf. I corner the mother-in-law.

Me: Is this what you've been making the whole time?
Her: Well, we were out of regular.

I stare at her wordlessly for about twenty seconds.

I get in the minivan. Someone on this island has to have real coffee.

There are three convenience stores on Harker's Island. One is closed for Easter. The other two have no coffee. DO YOU HEAR WHAT I'M TELLING YOU? Gas stations with no coffee. The best thing I can find is Frappucino in a bottle. I buy it with a Coke chaser.

It is terrible. I drink the Coke instead on the drive home, which is only four minutes long. Back at the kitchen, I consider microwaving the vile frappucino in an attempt to make it taste more like real coffee. JP tells me this is a bad idea. Luckily, by now the caffeine in the Coke is kicking in and I'm beginning to see reason.

I drink the Frappucino.

JP will not take me back to the beach, despite my assurances of adequate caffeination and better behavior.

Also, the Retreiver seems a little traumatized.

Palm Leafs for a Funeral

2010-03-28T21:48:00.007-04:00

This sadness. This outrageous, uncalled-for sadness. This grief with no name. This moment, this lifetime, a tragic ending. This Not Supposed To Be.

This opening of possibilities, this testament to the worst that can happen. The worst can happen.

This sadness the cord that both feeds and strangles me. The young death. The birth slept through. This nonconsent. This potential, missed.

These bright flashes, brilliant and certain. This fallout.

Palm leafs for a funeral. This holy grief. Who is blessed?

Health Care Reform, my way.

2010-03-19T17:42:00.012-04:00

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MOMMYTOWN:

Section 1. When seeking presciption drugs or a sick note for work or school, a WebMD diagnosis shall suffice except in the case of Schedule III controlled substances which will require such information as can be printed from your home computer from google.com/health.

Section 2. Pediatric patient waiting rooms shall be furnished with inflatable bounce houses for well children; ice cream sundae bars for sick children. Shots shall be abolished forthwith and as such all vaccines, antibiotics, rabies treatments, and novacaine shall be administered via medicinally-infused temporary tattooes of either the Star Wars or Hello Kitty variety.

Section 3. Highly technical, jargon-filled diagnoses shall be renamed with humor and according to the common vernacular. Eg: ADHD shall be known henceforth as Bad Kid; allergic rhinitis to be reclassified as Stuffed-the-Fuck-Upedness; Type II Diabetes as Doughnut Syndrome.

Section 4. In response to the overwhelming popularity of hot TV doctors, all physicians must be exceedingly attractive and preface their names with "Mc." Congress does not forsee a conflict of interest between hot Irish American TV doctors and the growing population of Indian American medical doctors, as Indian men are incredibly attractive once they shave off their moustaches and McPatel sounds just fine. As such the Hippocratic Oath should be ammended to include the verbiage "First, do no ugliness."

Section 5. Pre-existing conditions immediately and unequivocally qualify the Patient for Vicodyn and Bugs Bunny Band-Aids, as those Patients presenting with established illnesses deserve extra TLC.

Section 6. All women having given birth and/or breastfed a child shall be entitled to breast augmentation or reduction, tummy tuck, vaginoplasty, liposuction, and a lifetime supply of SSRI's.

Section 7. Botox is not a privilege, but a universal right.

Section 8. End of Life Counseling (aka Death Panels) and abortion coverage shall be made available, free of charge and in exclusivity, to fans of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Section 9. Every effort must be made to promote preventive health measures. As such, gynecologist visits and mammograms shall be rewarded with Nordstrom vouchers.

Section 10. CT scanners must broadcast Black Eyed Peas or Iz to decrease symptoms of claustrophobia and ennui.

Section 11. No officer of a private health insurance company may earn more money than God or Oprah Winfrey.

Section 12. There shall be a cure for the common cold, autism, AIDS, and all forms of cancer.

Section 13. All laws or parts of laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed, reduced, or recycled.

Section 14. This act shall become effective on April 1, 2010 upon a majority vote by honest, working parents of the non-Vanderbiltian class.

Disclaimer

2010-03-17T19:03:00.003-04:00

OK I have to say it.

The entries published herein are works of FICTION (stop freaking out Aunt Lisa! Dad--that's not you!), and all names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of my imagination or are used fictitiously or are entirely too funny/ridiculous to go without mention. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is probably on purpose so I suggest you get over yourself.

Should you find yourself suggested, parodied, named, or otherwise outrightly called out for the purposes of my silly musings feel free to meet me behind the playground after school. I dare you.

Furthermore, should you even THINK about reproducing, copying/pasting, or otherwise jacking without my permission the content posted here I WILL SHANK YOU.

Finally, should you feel slighted, left out, or otherwise unappreciated by me, my family, or my Gregories please cease and desist before polluting my blog with the indecency that is your drug-addled existence and mind your vagina.

© Becky Pennington Powell

Constellations Visible and Invisible

2010-03-04T18:48:00.000-05:00

The year she was raped Hannah learned to make lists. The very night it happened—while it was happening, actually—she had named to herself at least fourteen constellations visible and invisible in the Carolina blue night sky while a man stained her with the smell of gas. Orion Little Dipper Big Dipper Taurus Scorpio. Stars and the light of a Texaco sign stop nobody.

Tonight, driving from Chapel Hill to Clayton, the highway a long, lean path for a mind to just lie down and stretch out on, she thinks again of stars. How even the universe—chaotic, infinite, and uncalled for—can be ordered and listed, quantified and named. How the trees, thick as her hair and blacker, curtain off the brightest city lights and sheet each side of the highway like surgical draping.

There was a girl in Inpatient this morning, overflow from the hand clinic, the girl’s usual therapist taking a personal day for some or other crisis. Fire flood pestilence. Both the girl’s hands had been sutured and splinted. Hannah picked words like berries from her charts, scratches, slashes of doctors’ writing. Strawberry raspberry mayhaw blackberry. Battery. Assault. Multiple traumas. Tendon lacerations, both hands, volar and dorsal surfaces. Rotten berries, bee-stung, sour, and bruised.

What had happened to her? Jesus wounds—both palms split open and through. Hannah noted her meds, contraindications. Motrin Valium Percocet Darvocet. Preven, the pill for the morning after.

She retrieved the girl from the waiting room. “Joelle Pickering?”

The girl looked faded. Her skin the color of clouds.

“Hi, I’m Hannah.”

The girl followed her into the treatment room. She was thin, her eyes heartbeating— too-full and pulsing—across the machines, the adaptive equipment in the room. She’d landed in the first chair from the door and pushed herself back to the wall hard enough to make sound, a sharpness echoing in the wide-open room.

Adaptation was Hannah’s job. A skill she taught, the law of nature she drew from her patients—the vestigial made necessary and exterior. Hannah picked a chair of the same size from the therapy table, faced it toward Joelle. When she sat, their knees nearly touching, their legs made a work surface.

“How are you today?” Joelle looked at the door.

“Your pain?”

Hannah took the right hand, the one that needed her most, braced herself against the quick gasp of tearing Velcro as she removed the first splint. It sounded like a choke, like the tearing of clothes.

Not being able to breathe. The lights were too bright for this to be happening. She had picked the most brightly lit station. How was this happening? What if someone pulled up, saw her here, naked and naming stars? Andromeda Orion Haley.

“Glad to be out of those splints, to be sure.”

To be sure. Joelle’s eyes had rolled over and through her, reaching like surf and then drawing back as quickly. Hannah had to be careful. The undertow of her patients’ trauma could suck her right under their sea. Pacific Indian Arctic. Their clawed hands scarred and reaching. A hospital was no place for sympathy.

“You normally see Liz Baileycroft, don’t you?”

Joelle still looking at the door.

“She couldn’t be here today. I’m sorry. I’ll be filling in just this time. She has kids? I think one of them has strep.” Joelle’s hands were locked, flat, fingers splayed in each direction from weeks in splints. The wide stretched fingers of the sleepwalker, the magician, the traffic cop. Abracadabra. Slow down. Wait. Hannah noted the condition of the scars, the degree of swelling in each hand. “That’s the worst part about working in hospitals. You become a carrier, and everyone you live with gets exposed.”

She loosened Joelle’s hands of their frozen gestures, flexed each finger toward the scars that lay coiled and raised as snakes. Moccassin garden cobra. Good range of motion.

“I want you to take my hands now and squeeze. Good.” Poor muscle strength for six weeks post-op. Joelle let go and placed her hands in her lap without looking at them.

“Tell me how you’ve been feeling. Have you noticed improvement? In your hands?”

“Most of the time I just want to die.”

Joelle’s hands lay slack in her lap, palms up and welcoming no one.

“Have you told, have you told anyone else about these feelings, Joelle? Your parents? A, a counselor?”

“I can’t handle bullshit sympathy. Look, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I can talk to your doctor, if you want. Get you a consult? There’s a lot of help out there.”

“Whatever. Has it been an hour yet?”

“We have a lot of work to do. I need you to help me. Try to get the most out of your session today. So…let’s start with some light exercises.” She handed the girl a putty ball. “Squeeze.”

“No.”

“Again.”

“No,” she said, but she did.

Hannah watched her patient. Her eyes had fallen, her whole face washed away and collecting like silt at the corners of her mouth. She had been pretty.

Hannah took her right hand, the one that needed her most, flexed and massaged each digit, pinching the end of each fingertip for circulation. “Tell me if anything I do hurts you.” Hurt. Joelle had been hurt. Her hand in Hannah’s lay heavy and dead.

The road skinnies down to two lanes. Hannah merges right, sets the cruise control as she passes 54. Twenty-three miles more. She names to herself each exit from the hospital to the house. Page Road fifty-five Durham Freeway Cary Parkway Jones Sausage Walnut Gorman Wheeler.

She scanns the dashboard. She can make it to Forty-Two with this much gas.

“You’re going to need these hands again. Don’t you want to be able to write checks? Hold a baby? Make a phone call?” Hannah pulled a flexor ball from the drawer beneath the therapy table. “Liz has given you one of these, right?” Joelle nodded. “You’ll need to do this one three to five times a day. You just squeeze the ball with as much pressure as you can,” Hannah demonstrated for her, “ten to fifteen times.”

Joelle was looking at the door again. “The other lady, she already showed me all this.”

“And I can tell from your scars that you’re not doing your exercises. The ball, the tendon glides, they keep your hands flexible, make them stronger. If you don’t do them, scar tissue will begin to adhere to your tendons and your fingers will become immobilized.”

“I don’t care.”

Hannah thought she would talk to the doctor in Inpatient, see about some meds. Zoloft Xanax Prozac Serazone.

“Are you sad, Joelle?”

Joelle didn’t answer.

“Irritable? Sleepless? Do you cry often?”

Nothing.

“What did you like to do before—before you hurt your hands?”

“I liked to fuck.”

God. “I know this is painful, Joelle. I know it hurts.”

She had been hurt.

“Do you know what happened to me?” Joelle asked.

Assault. Multiple traumas. Counting constellations and the smell of gasoline. A gun and a dirty bandanna.

“You have a lot to look forward to, Joelle. One thing I know—everybody heals. I promise.”

“Don’t you know what happened to me?”

“Let’s work on the pegboard. Have you done this with Liz?” Hannah retrieved the handmade board and pegs—a gift from a veteran patient healed with pine and an awl. She sat down again, set the board in Joelle’s lap and the pegs in her own. “I want you to try at least one of the pegs with your left hand, okay?”

Joelle’s hands worked like claws, four fingers seamed at the knuckles and struggling to grasp the skinny pegs. Finally she pincered one. It fell to the floor on the trip from Hannah’s lap to hers.

“Fuck it. This is stupid.”

Hannah resets the cruise control to seventy-four. She’d botched the session. She worked in Inpatient—not Psych—most of her patients were hip-replaced geriatrics and car accidents. She wasn’t used to patients like Joelle. She’d worn her jeans so low on her hips that her panties showed. She didn’t wear a bra. Her mouth hung slack and open. Asking for something.

Hannah led Joelle to a seat at the paraffin table. She dipped Joelle’s hands in the warm wax. “Doesn’t that feel wonderful? Sometimes when—”

“Please don’t—” Joelle said.

Don’t touch me.

“I’m sorry—I—”

Stop.

“Don’t touch me.”

“It’s okay, Joelle. You’re okay.”

PTSD. Insomnia fear of crowds and the smell of gas, nightmares and invasive thoughts. A touch was a punch and a red bandanna, devastating.

Hannah raised her hands, palms out, an offering. A blessing. People needed to be touched. Hannah remembered a patient—fifty-something, female, divorced—she’d lost a foot to diabetes. Ursula. She’d wept when Hannah took her hand, excited by some small triumph. No one’s held me in years. People needed to be touched.

He had come from behind. She’d felt his hand where it shouldn’t be before she ever heard him. Smelled him. Tasted sweat in a mouthful of red bandanna.

She placed Joelle’s waxy hands in loose plastic gloves to seal in the heat and moisture. There was time enough now get a Diet Coke—come back in ten minutes to finish the session. She looked at Joelle not looking at her hands. The high, artificial arch of her eyebrows, the black pencil fault line on her lids, the tracks and pits in the skin of an otherwise pretty face. She had been pretty. It would be hard to put on makeup with both hands splinted and heavy.

The therapy room was empty and cold. Quarter to four and everybody gone. An empty doughnut box on the table and none of the usual shuffling and grunting and false, false cheer.

Sometimes I just want to die.

“How do those hands feel now?”

“Good, I guess. It’s warm. What is this stuff supposed to do?”

“Relaxes your muscles, your tendons. It helps, too, to soften the scars.”

She held both of Joelle’s hands at once, massaging each palm, feeling the knots of thick, pink scar beneath the plastic gloves, the tissue-paper skin. What had happened to her? “Do you want to talk about it?” Hannah asked. “Your injuries? About what happened to you?”

“No.”

“Have you talked to anybody about it?”

“People will think I’m a slut.”

“You’re not.” Shut up. Shut the fuck up. “Have you talked to your mother?”

“She can’t stop crying. She can’t talk about it.”

“Your dad?”

“Not my dad.”

Hannah ventured a smile. Iknowithurts. “You can talk to me.”

Joelle looked away.

“Victims often feel responsible for what happened to them. They feel ashamed—like it was their fault.”

It was her own fault. The interchange, the gas station, the choking and the stink of sweat. She should have gotten gas in the morning. She should have seen him coming—the red bandanna on his neck, his dirty blue jeans.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have been so drunk.”

She should have paid attention to what was around her.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I know where you live, honey. You tell anybody, I’ll kill your puppy, your baby, whatever you got around.

Fourteen constellations and dirty blue jeans.

The girl’s lips were big on her face. Her eyes too wide and wanting. Hannah wanted to stop talking about it.

“There wasn’t a gun. Doesn’t that make it my fault?”

Her fault for wearing perfume that day. Gardenia orchid rose magnolia. Scented flowers attract bee stings.

“I stopped fighting him. I was scared.”

She’d been scared.

“Sometimes I wonder if it even happened. I mean, the way I remember it. I think maybe I made it up in my head. My dad says I just did it for attention, you know?”

What had happened?

“Like, maybe I dreamed it.”

Hannah fit a splint back on the girl’s right hand. The one that needed her most. The girl’s fingernails were ragged and thin, torn paper edges.

Hannah knew what had happened to her. This girl, her heavy makeup and skinny clothes, her nipples showing through her shirt. She had swelled and crested among the boys, bobbing in the sea and sunlight of her own drunkenness. Black Caspian Mediterranean. Asking for it.

“I never asked for this.”

Asking for a fight, for the one act play that would make her tragic and watched. She would have hit him first. He’d have pushed her—into a fence, onto broken glass. Torn her hands.

“There was this party? At Kaylie Shockley’s? We were drinking grape juice and Everclear. After a while, like, I got pretty drunk. I crashed in Kaylie’s room. Everybody else was still downstairs. Pretty lame, huh?”

Hannah said nothing.

“There was this guy—from another school, I think. I didn’t know him, anyways. I woke up and he was just—in the room with me. He just started hitting me like out of nowhere and the music was so loud and nobody heard me from up there and he kept telling me to shut up.”

I said shut the fuck up.

“There was a bottle. A broken bottle.” She turned her face to the window. A purple line, puckered and raised, slithered from behind her ear and down. “He raped me.”

“We’re through now,” Hannah told her.

“But—”

“Liz will see you this time next week? All right.”

Sometimes the lifeboat goes down with the rescued. In their panic, the drowning drown the lifeguard. The water pulls her. She tires of treading. She passes the Texaco, thinking on the names of stars. She can make it home on vapors.

Insomnia is a Brillig Bitch and Other Meditations on the Frumiousness of ML.

2010-02-03T14:36:00.012-05:00

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

                          - Lewis Carroll
                          (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

Sigh. I'm so sleepy I IS THAT A UNICORN PRANCING ACROSS THE CUL DE SAC oh never mind. Yawn. I've been up since 2AM. You? One night I'll learn to quit fighting my wily bogeyman and just get out the bed when it so obviously, unequivocally, and indisputably appears that I'll not be revisiting dreamland again ante this meridiem. Really, it's a waste of imaginative energy and my heightened sense of drama to spend four hours each godawfully EARLY morning brooding over last year's Tax Deductions of Questionable Legality and the boy's heart arrythmia and the plight of the orphans of Haiti and OH MY GOD WHAT IF A COMET REALLY IS ON TRACK TO PUMMEL THE PLANET AND BRUCE WILLIS WAS DEAD ALL ALONG (curse you, M. Night. Shyamalan and I don't believe that's your real name either!) or I'm Pretty Sure That This Twitch In My Eye is MS.

And I get foot cramps. Paralyzing, agonizing, My-Toes-Are-Trying-To-Make-The-Vulcan-Salute-Entirely-Against-My-Will Cramps.

AND everyone in my house snores. Seriously. It's positively cacophonic. Husband, children, dogs. Cat. OH HAI NALA ARE YOU FINALLY DYING I KEEP EXPECTING TO HEAR A DEATH RATTLE AT ANY MOMENT BUT INSTEAD IT APPEARS YOU HAVE SLEEP APNEA. (purr/snore/suspend breathing...purr/snore/suspend breathing)

I should just slay the insomniac jabberwock, rise up from the covers and channel my uffish thoughts into writing the Great American Novel. Burble, burble. Snicker-snack. Really, what else is there to do at three in the morning but fire up the desktop (note that I mean this expression as the phrasal idiom it so obviously is in that I have successfully avoided setting fires at night ever since I fell back to sleep after having placed a frozen pizza in the oven only to wake up to hours later with the fire alarm screaming and a lump of charcoal in my new GE Profile built-in convection oven) and let the creative juices flow.

(Diagram THAT sentence, bitches....)

Sadly, at three in the EVER LOVING MORNING my words come out more mimsy and outgrabed than Carrol's Walrus and soon I can't find any more of the little scoundrels and my stories fall flat as matzo. Do you know what I can find a lot of at three o'clock in the morning?   Porn. And lolcats. Neither of which are conducive to my elbowing my way past Steinbeck and Vonnegut. But damn they're funny.

ARIA Chapter One

2010-01-31T18:41:00.001-05:00

“Goddammit, Grace, when are you gonna stop being such a fucking little primadonna?”

His words smolder in her ears, scald her face with an anger that blisters. Grace is hot. Hot to the touch. Flowers would wilt if she got too near; children would catch fever.

Daddy never gets the words right. Especially when he’s mad at her. Like when he told her she had distemper after popping Tommy Barbour at school, even though everybody knows that distemper is a dog disease and Tommy Barbour deserved every pop he ever got.

Grace makes her way now through a bedroom where thick curtains and drawn shades make seeing tricky. The air is thick, dark, beer-scented with a hint of White Shoulders.

She tries to wake Mama to ask her opinion on this fresh and unfamiliar insult. Primadonna. But Mama won’t answer. Won’t even look at her. Her top lip is the wrong color. Grace sees the purple even in the dark—a fat grape, swollen, rancid.

“Go play in the back yard, honey.” Mama looked past her earlier this clean blue morning. Through her. Grace’s Daddy had been up for only a few minutes, but he was already good and mad. “Look what you made me do,” he’d said, his voice cutting through the sound of her mother’s sobs.

Grace crumples the word up in her head, sets fire to it.

She finds it in the dictionary she keeps in her room, “the principal woman singer in an opera.” Well she does like to sing, but her father wouldn’t know. He fell asleep at her Christmas recital and snored all the way through the Hallelujah chorus. She keeps reading: “a temperamental, vain, or arrogant person.” She thinks her father’s insults usually say more about himself than about whoever it is he’s yelling at any given moment—which is most of them.

Primadonna. This morning he was showing off her school uniform for whichever one of her parents would look at her. Of course, Mama’s eyes were still closed and it didn’t look like Daddy’s had achieved single vision. She was imagining she was some big city model that probably every girl in the whole world wants to look like. Bulbs flashed, the people whispered (“they say she is smart, too—lucky girl”) until the reality of her unglamorous self tested her father’s patience.

Grace is starved. She thinks about eating a bowl of cereal, but all this morning’s meanness has made her stomach angry and ravenous. She wants eggs, bacon, and the kind of biscuits only Mama can make. Grace tried to make them once, but she burned her fingers putting them in the oven and Daddy had smacked her for being so stupid. She tromps back to her mother’s bedroom, throws the door open with all the fierceness of a hungry warrior princess. “I want breakfast.”

Mama squints her eyes at the light Grace has let into the room, winces, and pulls the covers over her head. “Let Mama sleep, honey.”

Grace walks up to the bed and pulls the covers back, exposing her mother’s face. The ugliness of her mouth makes Grace even angrier. “I said I’m hungry.” Mama won’t open her eyes. “Get up!” Grace can’t stand it. “You’re being lazy!”

Mama rolls over and pulls the covers back over her head. “You’re acting just like your daddy, Grace. Go get you some cereal”

Grace Honeycutt is probably the only girl in both Carolinas with no middle name to punctuate her first. Instead she has acquired a whole string of first names—there’s Goddammit Grace, Jesus Christ Grace, Why Can’t You Play Nice Grace, and this, her personal favorite: You’re Just Like Your Father Grace.

Well she’s not. Her eyes are Gulf Stream bluegreen—not clear cloudless Honeycutt blue. She hasn’t half the mean streak of her daddy’s people and she prefers Kool Aid to Jim Beam any day. And most importantly, she loves words and she knows how to use them. Sometimes she just says “tabernacle” out loud for the sheer joy of it. Wonderful word! Fills up her mouth like taffy, chewy and sweet. There’s not one Honeycutt down east with any use whatsoever for a thesaurus.

Her stomach rolls around inside her. Maybe she will eat cereal.

At school she’s studying to be an actress. Well not really—she is studying Math and Language Arts and Social Studies and Science and the Scriptures but all the while she’s fooling every last one of them. She’s like Ava Gardner who came from this very town and was very pretty and a really good actress but she’s dead now. Grace, too can pretend to be happy and smart but not clever ‘cause clever gets you detention or worse and a Christian but not a Catholic because they don’t hold with that business about the saints and the Pope and the rosary here at the Lighthouse Bible School (Non-Denominational.)

Today during Language Arts Grace can’t even finish the poem she’s supposed to write. She can’t think of a single word that rhymes with prima donna and that’s just not like her because she knows lots of words and always excels at creative writing. Her eyes start to sting again and the room is too fluorescent and even though all the other kids are busy scratching out silly couplets that will almost surely contain such unimaginative pairings as world and pearl, love and above, Grace is pretty sure that at least Misty Johnson and Brandi Barnes know that Grace is a prima donna. They won’t know what the word means but they’ll know that it’s mean and they know everything about being mean. Grace hears a snicker from the back of the class. She thinks she needs to go. To the hall, the bathroom, anywhere ‘cause she can’t cry in front of the other kids. She swallows hard and looks straight at the ceiling lights which probably looks weird but she knows from experience that staring a bright light will keep the tears from coming.

She takes the hall pass and gets ready to run just as soon as she clears the doorway.

“Gracie?” Miss Lenoir, her teacher, has followed her to the hallway. “Is everything okay?” Grace tells her she is fine, really, but Miss Lenoir looks at her with those eyes just as kind as can be. She stoops, lowers herself down so she can look Grace right in the face. What is the matter? She just doesn’t feel good, Grace starts to tell her, but her stupid self chokes up and get all teary and shaky again.

Miss Lenoir knows about Grace’s family, had seen her Mama look down at the floor while her Daddy did all the talking at Parent’s Night, had seen Grace’s eye the day she came to school banged up from a sport she never played.

Miss Lenoir says that Jesus wouldn’t want Grace to be so angry. Angry. What would Jesus know about angry? As far as Grace knows, Joseph never called Mary a fat pig, never gave her something to cry about. Especially not in front of Jesus.

The one time the social worker came out she said in her report that Grace’s family was just “colorful.” Grace had intercepted that letter before her Daddy could see which she could do because getting the mail is one of her chores and not showing Daddy anything that might make him mad is really just another one.

Colorful, like that painting she saw the one time her mama took her up to the art museum in Raleigh--the one with too many colors that was splatter-painted by some famous artist without a bit more artistic talent than Grace herself. At least Grace could draw. In fact, they put her pencil drawing of Buoy Thirteen in an art show at school.

Grace thinks that her people are more like the orchestra at Lighthouse Bible School—everybody playing loudly all at the same time with no discernable melody and Tommy Barbour banging the hell out of the base drum while Mrs. Morgan yawns at the chaos. In Grace’s house it’s her dad banging the hell out of everything—the front door, the china cabinet, or Mama’s head while Mama waits for it all just to be over with so she can go back to bed.

It’s like Mama has been sitting in the back of the theater for a long time now. Grace wants her to get up, put on her costume, and sing, but all Mama does is watch, listen.

“Why don’t you just go home, since you don’t feel so good,” Miss Lenoir says to Grace, catching a tear with her thumb, and for a moment mercy is the most beautiful word in the whole English language. “Do you want me to call your Mama?”

“No. I can get myself home.” It’s against all the rules for her to leave school without a parent but Miss Lenoir won’t tell anybody ‘cause she knows that Mama won’t drive her.

Grace unlocks her bike from the fence at the school yard. She has to lock it now on account of one of the trailer kids stole her last one. The school they called the police for her and the officer knew right where to look for it. They went down to Tyler Dupree’s place at the Shangri-La Trailer Park, which looked not one bit like what Grace thought it should, being named after such a pretty place and all.

Tyler’s momma won’t even open the door for Officer Mike and even though Grace could see her bike through the screen door—in pieces with the wheels off it—Tyler didn’t get in one bit of trouble far as she could tell.

Grace got some belt stripes and later, a new bike. Seeing as she was careless with the first one the new one is cheaper and wants for a banana seat and handle streamers.

Grace puts the chain in the basket and sets off, pedaling away just as fast as she can. But she’s not going home. Maybe not ever. She cuts through the church grounds, right between the parish hall and the sanctuary. Anybody might see her—people go to church at every hour of the day, it seems like—but she doubts her father would pick this of all mornings to come talk to Jesus. She coasts down St. Anne’s street, Vidalia, and finally Sweet Olive, making precise hand signals before each turn for the benefit of all the cars that aren’t on the road.

Primadonna. The word hits her again like a shotgun blast—as if the shock of the sound and the sharp scent of the explosion were not enough, the gun kicks back and further insults your senses by walloping you right in the chest. Grace Honeycutt grows tired of the walloping. Sometimes she does understand her mother. A couple of years ago Mama got tired of crying. Or maybe she got tired from crying, ‘cause now all she ever wants to do is sleep. Grace signs Mama’s name on all her permission slips and progress reports now, and last year she packed Mama’s things when Daddy took her to that hospital in Raleigh where they shocked her brain.

It must already be a hundred and two, she figures. The people lounging on their big front porches look at her all sideways and funny, wondering, probably what she was doing by herself on a school day. Even though Grace waves at every last person she sees, nobody waves back. She figures by now the people of Smithfield have just about perfected the art of looking the other way.

Finally she reaches the riverbank. She climbs off the bicycle that’s still a little too big for her on account that she’ll grow into it and walks it past the bridge, down to the river so as not to disturb the birds and turtles and whatever else might be swimming around today.

Grace loves this river. She imagines she is not her parents’ child—that she was pulled out of the Neuse like the baby Moses by a green-eyed mother who sometimes still smiled. Nothing makes her Mama smile anymore, not since they put the rubber between her teeth and tried to shock her back into the world. Or out of it. Grace wonders why murderers and sad housewives get the same punishment.

She sits on the branch of a low-boughed live oak tree and pulls her pencils, a drawing pad, and an apple from the backpack she drops to the marshy grass below her. She intends to draw, or maybe write a poem.

The number two pencils she brought with her will not do at all. She needs at least a hundred different shades of green to even start to draw or write this river.

Sometimes Grace is just amazed at all the shades of green God put in this world. She looks around her and absorbs the green sounds of washing water and the songs of frogs, tastes boggy moss in the humid air she has to work to breathe, and smells the algae that lazies around the surface of the green pool beneath her. She stretches, dabbling just one toe into the murk. She imagines she is a mermaid who drinks thick thunderclouds and swims in green water. She figures she’s more fish than mammal, anyway—sprung up from eggs lain by a mother who swam away when the birthing was done with.

Grace munches on her apple and feels just like Eve sitting on the Tree of Knowledge, except she’s got all her clothes on. And the only snakes around are water moccasins, and no self-respecting devil would ever shed his serpent skin for such dull, soaked slitheriness. She thinks again of her father.

Jesus wouldn’t want her to be so angry.

She decides, for the hundred thousandth time, that if she ever speaks to her father again, she will tell him to go to hell.

A Service of Thanksgiving and Praise for the Life of Ryan Gregory

2010-01-15T11:00:00.006-05:00

Click here to view video

(password: GREGORY)

I was so honored to be a part of this ceremony. Thank you, my Gregory Family.

SHINE.

c.1982

Christmas 1993

August 2009

Shine: A Eulogy for Ryan Gregory

2010-01-09T12:02:00.004-05:00

Ryan.

I met you on a particularly bright, particularly hot East Texas summer day. The kind of day that melds light and heat together to sear the lungs, squint the eyes, and blister the bare feet of running children. The kind of day that poses the question to the minds of East Texans young and old whether they live closer to heaven or hell.

It was 1981. You were an infant. I was six. I had the baby fever common to girls my age, that fierce urge to hold something and mother it and with it, the sad knowledge that the mommies of real babies don’t usually trust our kind to hold them.

But sometimes we asked anyway. Ryan, your mom said yes!

You were the first baby I ever held. I began with the rocking of you, careful, supervised.

You became a toddler, then, a windstorm of a child who could inflict more damage to himself and his surroundings than your holding girl ever could. You accumulated casts and stitches as some children collect rocks and caterpillars. It became a necessity, my holding you. I told myself and you this. You complied, and I held you till you grew big as me, and heavier.

My little boy: you. My first one. I credit all I know about mothering boys to you, my tiptoed one, my quiet one. From whom else would a girl among girls learn the secret languages of Transformers and Hobbits, Ninja Turtles and Masters of the Universe?

Astonishing, that you grew to be bigger than me. Astonishing, that we waded into the Texas gulf as laughing children and emerged as adults, shimmering and tall and sunburned, slick-stained with heartbreak and mortality. That we outlived the fishes and kittens and puppies of our childhoods, and all the rest of us: you.

You dreamed of clearer, bluer waters than our Gulf, more white sand than our sandbox could hold. Do you see them now? You dreamed of moving to New Zealand, making films in a land that God Himself wept for the beauty and the making of it. The land of Hobbitts and Magical Rings, Cowboys and Tattooed Aboriginals. The stuff of movies.

Astonishing, that we dared to believe that you’d live to grow gray in hair and beard, to see your own films at Cannes and Sundance, to marry a beautiful girl and become as good a father as you were a son, uncle, friend, brother.

Astonishing, the number and array of people whose lives you shined your light upon, so many of them here today. Your family, your friends, fellow artists and filmmakers, musicians, teachers, pastors, nurses, doctors, cancer survivors. Your friends, your amazing, wonderful friends…you have so many! To think that any of us ever worried that you, the sole boy in a house full of girls, the shy, intensely creative child who couldn’t sit still in class like the other kids, might grow up to be a kind of loner. Kind of…unpopular.

What a silly worry that was. Look at all of you here!

When I came to San Antonio last August for your benefit, Ryan, I got to meet so many of your friends and fellow artists. The refrain I heard over and over that evening was how talented you are. “The absolute best,” so many of them told me. “A genius,” I heard again and again. The popular consensus that night was that you could light the sun itself. That God said "Let There Be Light" and Ryan said, “Can I help?”

You were gifted. Now, in losing you, I’m reminded of a phrase from the eulogy of JFK Jr.: you had “every gift but length of years.”

You asked, as you were coming to terms with your disease, why God had given you such talent if you weren’t going to get to live long enough to use it fully. You knew you had more sets to light, more films to shoot, more art to create than you had time for.

Ryan, your instinct to create was so strong that had you lived to be ninety you wouldn’t have had time to finish your life’s work.

Your sister Alicia and I pondered this question late into the night last night. Why did God give you such talents if He wasn’t going to let you stay with us to fully realize them? Your talents, Ryan, your skill at lighting and set building, your artistry, your quick smile and thoroughly intelligent if not thoroughly odd, even macabre sense of humor—these talents opened your life to so many experiences and opened your life to so many friendships. Ryan, are you looking down right now? Look at all of us, each of us brought here today by our love for you, by our relationships with you. Look at all of us changed forever, for the better, for the knowing of you. Your talents, Ryan, they unleashed you into a circle of friends, into a community of creativity, that gave your life purpose, definition, and joy. Your talents allowed you to shine your lights on stages and movie sets and special events and especially, on each of us, no matter how briefly. And we are all better people for knowing you, Ryan, for being your childhood playmates, for being your friends in school, for working with you in theatre and film, for being a part of your living and dying.

Ryan, you lived and died intensely, with courage, with humor, with indomitable spirit and the clear, bright light of your being.

Shine on, Ryan. Shine on. You’re lighting a larger set now.

I hope your heaven looks just like New Zealand.

Ryan

2010-01-05T12:05:00.013-05:00

This is not a funny story.

I miss you so much already.

Bridger cried for you for hours last night. He remembers you taking us to Sea World. He remembers you drying him with a towel after the big whale splashed him.

My little boy: you. My first one. I credit all I know about mothering boys to you, my tiptoed one, my quiet one. From whom else would a girl among girls learn the secret languages of Transformers and Hobbits and Masters of the Universe?

Astonishing, that you grew to be bigger than me. That we waded into the Texas gulf as laughing children and emerged, shimmering and tall and sunburned, slick-stained with heartbreak and mortality. That we outlived the fishes and kittens and puppies of our childhoods, and all the rest of us: you.

You dreamed of clearer, bluer waters than our Gulf, more white sand than our sandbox could hold. Do you see them now?

I hope your heaven looks just like New Zealand, little brother.

Twelve Days of Christmas

2009-12-28T17:03:00.002-05:00

On the first day of Christmas,
my front door gave to me
a newly dislocated knee.

(Don't ask. OK I was running inside from the garage 'cause Baby It's Cold Outside and in my haste I kneecapped myself with my own front door. Why yes, that DOES hurt.)

On the second day of Christmas,

The fraser fir tree gave to me

Two itchy eyes

And a relentless need to sneeze.

On the third day of Christmas,
Having eaten everything in front of me
I gained three extra pounds,

(two of them from cookies!)

And had a relapse of anorexi

(a).

(OK I’m not really anorexic. So STOP worrying me about my weight, people! PLEASE. I eat food. I love food.)

On the fourth day of Christmas,
I drank too much brandy,
Four glasses eggnog,
Three cabernets,
Two Shiner Bocks,
And a hangover that nearly killed me.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my in-laws gave to me
Five Useless Things:
One laundry sorter,
Two drugstore perfumes,

A baby-head garden stone,
And one of those electronic aquariums with fake fishies.

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my mother gave to me

A photo session
at Portrait Innovations

where I got

Some gorgeous pictures of my babies!

On the seventh day of Christmas,

I drove out to Crabtree

(that’s one of the malls here, non-Triangular readers)

Had a nervous breakdown

Road-raged on a teenager

Saw the flashing blue lights

Got myself a ticket

Finally found a parking space

Then went on a rehabilitative shopping spree!

(One for her, two for me. One for him, two for me….)

On the eighth day of Christmas,
the cat climbed up the tree, sending
Eight glass balls tumbling
Seven angels falling
Six Keepsake ornaments breaking
Five garland strands tangling
Four light strands shorting,
Three candy canes crumbling,
Two branches breaking,
And a big mess just for me to clean.

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my kids they said to me,

“Mommy we’re BORED

Despite our stocking stuffers,

New electric scooter,

Pink Barbie Mustang

Playmobil vet clinic

Ten thousand legos

Board games and puzzles

Cinderella mp3 player

And the ever-elusive impossible-to-buy but Santa-brought-them-anyway Zhu-Zhu pets!”

(Child Protective Services is closed on Christmas. I know this because on that day I tried to report myself as an imminent danger to my children.)

On the tenth day of Christmas,

Bridger and Waverly

Ate too many cookies

Got a little hyper

Started running wild

That provoked their asthma

Necessitating albuterol

Which, ironically, is a stimulant

That makes them more hyper

Which results in wheezing

Perpetuating the cycle

Of respiratory distress and hyperactivity.

On the eleventh day of Christmas….

ELEVEN DAYS? ELEVEN?

ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY?

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love he sent me

To the place with the soft walls

And the funny jackets

(Not the black leather Frye one that I asked for)

The nurses here are real nice

And the drugs aren’t half-bad

And there are no kids here

Someone else cleans the kitchen

And they do the laundry

And there’s Peace on Earth and

jello cups and

Silent Nights

For me!