Crocodiles

After you’re dead,
we’ll haul off your things.
We’ll put all your life
in a box.
We’ll squabble for some
and we’ll auction the rest,
when you’re dead.
We’re you’re friends.
When you’re dead.

After you’re dead,
we’ll all wear our best shoes
to your funeral,
hoping for press.
And we’ll describe at great length
to anyone who will hear
how your death
causes us
such distress.

We’ll pretend
that we never spoke ill of you
that we didn’t see you
digging that grave.
Well, the truth is we knew,
but now that it’s all through,
we’re your friends!
When you’re dead, we’re your friends.

As I approach the three-decade mark, I become increasingly self-accepting. Accepting of my strengths. My weaknesses. My ass. And if you know me, you know that this is a lot–a lot–for me to accept. Oddly enough, this is exactly how I’d heard the experience described several years ago by some female co-workers.

“After thirty, you just…you know…you don’t give a shit what other people think.”
“Yeah, when I turned thirty, it was like instant!”

At the time, these sounded like the ramblings of crazy old broads who were on too many (or not enough) pills. It’s absurd to think that waking up older can make you go Poof! Up yours! But the closer I get, the more I understand.

I wish I could say that it’s because I’ve reached some pinnacle of understanding, because I’ve come to truly love the ‘real me’ and embrace my unique inner earth mother, and Vag Power, and blahdy bloo. But he truth is that, however less inspiring it sounds, I just I don’t have the spiritual energy to put up with other people’s bullshit anymore. You like me? Great. You don’t like me? Great. I don’t need your approval, or your acceptance. I tried like hell for the first third of my life to earn those things because I thought they would make me feel better and guess what? I felt exactly the same. Actually, worse, because determining our self-worth by how much or little others esteem us is the fastest way to: a) go nuts, and b) hate ourselves. Trust me.

Conserving our love, our energy, and our time for people that value us is the only thing that makes sense. I foolishly squandered a good portion of these resources on the undeserving and disinterested. Fortunately, I have plenty left. I’ve just realized that they’re more valuable than I thought, and begun to act accordingly.

I’m sure that many women reach this conclusion much earlier in life. Some later. Some never. For me, this is it. And I’m excited. At the risk of sounding overly You-Go-Girl, I have to say–if Thirty is this great, Forty must be fucking amazing.

One time
(I shouldn’t have
but I did)
I drove by your place
to see if her car
was in the driveway,
where my car used to be.
And even though my car
hadn’t been there
for more than a year,
even though I was on my way
to meet someone else,
even though it was my choice
to leave
and never come back again,
it hurt to see someone else there
where I used to be.
That’s just
the kind of woman
I am.

My mother lives for holidays. She managed to keep me believing in Santa until well past the time my peers had given up on such childish notions. Whenever I doubted and told her that the other kids said Santa/The Easter Bunny/The Tooth Fairy wasn’t real, she would explain that well yes, they DO stop being real, but only as soon as you stop believing in them (which is true). But this amazing feat was not achieved by my faith alone. The mythologies of childhood are fueled by blood, sweat and tears. Assembly is required and batteries are not included. To this day I have no idea how she managed to covertly purchase (and conceal) the mountains of gifts, put on (and clean up after) a lavish Cuban Christmas feast for our extended family, magically transform the living room overnight without waking a soul, then spend the whole goddamn day building stupid pink dreamhouses and jacuzzies and RVs, and putting Barbie into her tiny dresses and shoes (all of which would be lost by the next Christmas, inevitably). She was good. Like, ninja good. Waking us up to the glory of Christmas and Easter morning was something she did for what must have been close to fifteen years total, without any credit. Because, of course, Santa gets all the freaking credit. And the Easter Bunny. And the Tooth Fairy.  Not mom.

When I found out these characters were fictional, she kept it up for my sister–but still included me. Easter eggs and treats were hidden in the yard for Cristina, and in a chair for me was a bag of candy with this note, ‘from’ the Easter Bunny. On Christmas, my pile of gifts was still there, along with my letter from St. Nick. The only real difference was that rollerskates and bicycles were increasingly replaced by gift certificates to the Warehouse and Wet Seal. I couldn’t tell you how old I was when my sister found out and the notes stopped. I was busy being a teenage asshole. But I can tell you that we have never stopped opening our “Santa” presents by the tree, even after we both knew. Until this last year. Because my sister was in prison. And while I know we will return to our tradition, I know it won’t be the same–but I appreciate it all the more for that. It was the end of a chapter for all of us, and the beginning of something new. It’s time for my sister and I to start repaying the years of tireless generosity we have been shown. Time to be less burdens and more relief.

A few hours after finding the note in the box, I went to retrieve my mail (my mom had been text messaging me for two days to ‘expect the mailman’). Inside was an envelope from her containing a story she wrote. In the story she is roused from a sound slumber by the real live Easter Bunny. At first she wonders if he is an apparition brought on by a late night online poker tournament, and then she clocks him with an ashtray–that’s my mom in a nutshell right there! She tries to explain that she has no small children and that he should, “go find a house that has kids and make the fucking brats sick on M&Ms,” so she can return to sleep. But he is persistent. And kind of a dick. As it turns out, he is the spirit of one of our many childhood pets (and I think one of my mom’s favorites), a rabbit named Midnight who died when he escaped from his pen and was accidentally assassinated by our big, dumb, lovable dalmation Matthew (named by my sister in honor of my grade school crush, Matthew Edwards). Midnight the Easter Rabbit and my mother go flying on a trip through childhood past. They pass over our old house and favorite restaurant while he updates her as to all our deceased pets living happily in pet heaven, as well as the kindly old woman (Grandma) who visits them and feeds buttered toast to the cranky, toothless poodle. Obviously, the story made me laugh and made me cry. It was a bittersweet reminder of distant holidays, buried pets, totalled cars and and best friends long gone. Things that can never be the same again. When I compare the mood I was in after my box but before her story to my mood when I was done reading it, I’m face to face (yet again) with the greatest character difference between my mother and I. Where I mourn the past and hold on to sadness, she lets go and finds a way to simply move on. I’m sure it has to do with having been forced to survive losing everything she had, more than once. Sorrow is a luxury you don’t have when you are just trying to make it to tomorrow. I’ve been born lucky to be such a self-indulgent, overly emotional sap. But for a moment I am able to see with her perspective. And in that moment, I grow up a little. I realize how much focusing on the negative has cost me. I remember how good my childhood really was.

It wasn’t perfect. Our parents are imperfect people as we, their children, are imperfect people. We take their money and crash their car, insult them and say atrocious things, become no-goodnicks, get pregnant, go to jail, and generally disappoint them over and over again. But they keep doing all the things they do for us, supporting us, and forgiving us, in spite of what rotten little jerks we turned out to be. As more of my friends have children of their own, I am blown away by how exhausting just keeping up with the basic needs of another human being are. Let alone being responsible for providing this kind of infinite, unconditional love. This is what they taught me God was like. But while I prayed for God’s help, begged for his mercy, looked for his consolation–it was my mother who answered, it was my mother who saved me, it was my mother who sacrificed her life for mine. Without being asked, without being thanked, without even requiring me to have faith in her.

Although I found out a long time ago that my mother was the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus, it took me thirty years to realize she is greater than all of them put together. Because she did it without magic, without sparkling wands or glittering dust, without miracles. She did it all the hard way, she did it all herself. As it turns out, my mom is everything I ever believed in. And more.

Happy Easter, mom. Happy Mother’s Day, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Valentine’s, Happy Everything. You deserve it.

Now will you please go away?

As previously discussed here, I was a Knott’s “local” (local: (n) teenage annual-passholder who trolled the park in search of grope-sessions, cigarettes, and seriously low-rent weed) for several years. Hanging out at Knott’s was fun, but by 10th grade, I’d long outgrown it. Through logical extension, however, working at Knott’s would be almost as fun–in fact, it would hardly be working at all!

I don’t know that I’ve ever been more wrong about anything, ever (except that one guy…and that one other guy, rinse, repeat). It was a miserable job with miserable pay. Minimum wage (which was $4.25/hr at the time), shitty shifts that either began at 8am (which meant getting up at 6:30) or ended at 11pm–sometimes ended at 11pm AND began the next day at 8am. It absolutely destroyed weekends. My costume consisted of electric blue knee-length culottes (yeah, when’s the last time you saw some of THOSE?), a cream colored blouse with puffy sleeves and a peter-pan collar, and an enormous red bow tie. I wish I had a picture, I really do. My work itself consisted of manning various games throughout the day; up to eight hours of servicing tourists who felt entitled to every shred of my dignity because they gave me a dollar. I was constantly accused of rigging the games (like I, personally, had glued the milk bottles to the platform), not giving people enough ping pong balls, or bilking children out of their 35-cent prizes.  If I excelled, I might someday hope to operate one of the “barker” games (Guess-Your-Weight and Horse Racing), a much-coveted honor.  And if I really put my best foot forward, it was possible to be promoted out of the “Boardwalk” games area and to “Fiesta Village” games area.

six...more...hours

The job’s only saving grace was the seemingly endless parade of cute boys that filed through the “backstage” employee area, and the built-in party crew.  When you get off work at eleven, are surrounded by other people who also just got through working and are in dire need of a drink, and are all between 16 and 21, you can pretty much guess what happens next.

Beer bongs aside, after a couple of months I couldn’t take anymore. As I recall, my mom took me to see a doctor who exaggerated the veracity of my ‘kidney stones’ and got me a few days of sick time, after which I never went back.

Skipping forward to 2009, I’ve just seen the preview for a new movie “from the guys that brought you Superbad,” called Adventureland. It’s about working at an amusement park, and the tagline is “Did your first job suck this much?”  Of course, you know my answer. I’m elated because it promises to be entirely accurate and at the very least mildly funny, if not hi-larious. I’m crushed because it’s one more idea I won’t be the first person to exploit for money. And I’m inspired because it means that I may be in possession of any number of experiences that are low-budget, stoner-friendly movies just waiting to be penned.

I mean, more than one guy I’ve dated has been fascinated by the Knott’s and Knott’s-adjacent period of my adolescence–specifically, the semantics involved in getting to third base on a flume ride.  There must be an audience for The Adventures of Teen Tramp.

I hemmed and hawed
and now I’m
too old to die
at twenty-seven
like a legend.
I’m stuck here,
each year
becoming
more ma’am
and less miss.
The girls that I knew
have all pulled Patti Smiths–
they traded their
boots for a baby.

We eye each other
across the room of a decade
both brimming with envy
over decisions like dresses,
and wishing we’d worn
something else.

My guess is that the neighbors across the street (who have several outdoor cats that they just kinda feed) don’t spay or neuter and these kittens are the result. One is a girl, she’s mostly white, and they put a little bell around her neck. One is a boy that wears a white flea collar and he’s all orange. And the third is a smaller tom, with a white chin, chest, and paws. He doesn’t have a collar of any kind. At first, they were always hanging around and sleeping under cars together, scattering whenever I came near. But lately I’ve been seeing them one or two at a time, and they’ve become slightly more friendly.

Chicken Shag

Today I came home from the grocery store feeling particularly morose (the grocery store always depresses me) and sat the bags on the counter while I put everything away. I looked up to see No Collar peeking in my door. Quickly, I opened the rotisserie chicken I’d brought home and pulled off a little piece to offer him. He darted away as I approached the door, but I left it in the doorway for him and eventually he came to scarf it down. Then I put another piece on the floor inside, which he came in for. Then one in the kitchen. Then I sat on the stool by my sink and put pieces closer and closer to me until he was sitting up with his front paws on my knee and eating out of my hand. After he ate, he went and laid down under my coffee table on the shag rug. He matches the colors. He cleaned himself a while and then stretched and rolled around, tormenting me with his adorable white belly. I let him hang out, left the door open so he could leave when he wanted. After about an hour, he went outside but stayed near my door. Then I went to the bathroom and when I came back, he was gone. I was a little sad, but know he’ll come around again. There’s nothing cats love more than having their meals provided while retaining their freedom. And truthfully, I don’t really want the responsibility of having a pet of my own right now. I would draw the parallel between this experience and my love life, but it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. So, you know, do that one on your own.

I’m calling him Chicken Shag, since those were the things he seemed to like best about me and my apartment.