Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Funny haha, or funny peculiar......

Something I never thought would happen. In the last week or so I've heard from, or run into, several "good friends" of the guy the court convicted of aggravated assault. They seem to be quite fine with the way things turned out, and it's no surprise to them that he's going to prison. It's a strange thing to find out how people really feel.

Snow = yuck. Oh, it wasn't always this way. I used to love snow. When I was a kid my mom used to make me wear bread bags over my socks, (yes, really) and then put my feet into my boots. She said it made the boots come off easier and kept feet warmer. I never see kids doing that now and if I suggested it to Jay I think he'd laugh right in my face. But back then I would go out in the snow all the time. I loved to sled and build forts and stomp around. Even a decade ago I loved it. I would pack up my cross country gear and go ski in the forest or out at the nordic center. But now, I just want something warm and, well, snow-free. I'm tired of driving in it, walking on it and shivering from it. Ideally, a little snow, seen at night from a living room window, falling under the street light, would be beautiful. But it would need to melt the next day in 65 degree weather. THAT kind of snow I could enjoy.

For those of you that didn't know....coconut milk is CLEAR. I didn't know. I thought it was white. Like MILK. Why not call it coconut JUICE? Jay had a friend spend the night a few weeks ago and we all went to the store.
B was the only one that had ever opened up a coconut before (why didn't that surprise me?) so we got one. Yes. Clear.

I'm not a good joke teller. Never have been. I always forget the joke, or my timing's off, or I pick a joke that's not even funny. I saw this one the other day and liked it, and since I don't have to TELL it.....

There's this man at a bar, just staring at his drink. He stays like that for half of an hour.

This big guy walks up next to him, takes the drink, and just drinks it all down. The poor man starts crying. The guy says, "Come on, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I just can't stand to see a man cry."

"It's not that," the man says. "This day is the worst of my life. First, I did my taxes last night and owe a LOT of money, I didn't get to sleep until 3:00 am, I woke up late, and was late to work. It's the fifth time I've been late this month, and I missed a crucial meeting. Then my boss fired me. When I left the building, I found out my car has been stolen. I got a cab to go home, and when I got out at my house and tried to pay the driver, I couldn't find my wallet and credit cards. "

"When I walked in the house, I found my wife in bed with the gardener. I left and came to this bar. And just when I was about to put an end to my life, you showed up and drank my poison."


Hahaha.

And here's one more that made me laugh.....

Friday, February 19, 2010

I'm back (1/29/10)

I initially wrote this a couple weeks ago when I was in the midst of a trial. I decided not to publish it because of the trial stuff. Then, I realized that it's good to remember what's important. It's good to understand that in the big picture, my hardships are not that hard. And to keep in mind what the real victories are.

Wow. It's been awhile. I think I'll take this moment to just dive in. For the last year and a half I've been the "as opposed to victim I prefer the phrase girl-who-had-a-gun-held-to-her-head" in a criminal case in town. I still can't REALLY blog about it but soon......

Right now, I can tell you that I've been sitting in a courtroom for the last 4 days, listening to, and playing, a game. Kind of like the Superbowl (okay, I'm not that self-inflated, make it high school football). Two sides, two game plans, crazy rules and at some point, a winner.

I was a little overwhelmed coming home today. I had stellar friend support, a good man, fabulous victim witness folks, and yet still had the knowledge that life is a crap shoot and who KNOWS what will happen. Up, down, up, down. I even asked for positive energy and good thoughts on facebook and a whole bunch of great people answered me. So I felt really hopeful, and yet really vulnerable. My part in the trial was over. On one hand, I was strong, didn't get bullied by lawyers, and kept on track. On the other, a little man in a nice suit tried to twist everything I said, some girl lied about me and I had to look at people I didn't really like. Yuck! Then I got home and stood. Just stood. Slowly came back to this planet. Changed into sweats and slippers, riffled through People magazine. And on this planet I read my e-mail.......(yes, I'm loving the ellipses today)

Here's what I found......

WE MUST NEVER STOP HOPE-ING; PRAY-ING; AND BELIEVING EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
GREAT WAY TO START THIS NEW DECADE!!
SMILE AND ENJOY, BEV

Now, I'm not sure who Bev is. But her email was in response to my dear friend Jerry E, who has been fighting melanoma. I know that he will not mind me relaying this one sentence or two......

"We got some good news in Tucson last Thursday. My melanoma is, for the first time, STABLE. There was no progression of the disease since last November."

Now, that, my friends, is the important news of the day. There might be a trial. There might be too much snow. There might even be headaches and fear and Kurt Warner's retirement. But my friend Jerry's melanoma is stable. With news like that, none of the rest of it really matters. And hey, send your prayers, good thoughts, positive energy, and messages of hope through the universe Jerry's way.


"The things that will destroy us are politics without principle;
pleasure without conscience;
wealth without work;
knowledge without character;
business without morality;
science without humanity;
and worship without sacrifice." --
Mahatma Gandhi

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

tv

I am so addicted to Dexter. At work, I think, Wow, that woman in line reminds me of Rita. I spend many daydreaming moments wondering, Can someone in law enforcement really do that? I think of the characters as real people. I look forward to watching Dexter like one might look forward to a nice dinner. Ahhhh, I say when I sit down to watch, the reward to my long day.

It's sick. I have a house to clean. I have pictures to organize. I have actual novels on my nightstand to read. I could spend that late night Dexter time sleeping! I am so addicted to that show that I'm looking forward to the last episode. Then I can just be done.

I was at work this morning at 4:15. Yes. FOURFIFTEEN in the AM. I texted B during my break at 6:00. There was no Good Morning or Have a Good Day. My text went like this......"So, my take is this; Lila is going to kill Doakes to get Dexter back. They'll both be gone. Problem solved." Sheeeesh.

I've been thinking about the resolutions. I have decided to add to them, maybe on a daily basis for the entire month of February. I don't think one can have too many resolutions. I figure if I get close to 75% realized I'll be groovy (funny tangent - I just looked up current slang for "great" and found "groovy" - that is so wrong). So, here are a couple more....

*I'm going to keep a decent bottle of champagne in my refrigerator at all times.
*Once a week I'm going to make it a point to call someone I haven't spoken to in a while, just to say hello.

Okay, these last two resolutions (proclamation? goals?) sound like something out of a Redbook Magazine article on "How to have a sunny disposition" which makes me throw up a little. I obviously need to revise....

*I'm going to keep a decent bottle of champagne in my refrigerator at all times so I can drink Mimosa's before going to work in the morning.
*Once a week I'm going to make it a point to call someone I haven't spoken to in a while, just to say hello or to ask where in the hell is the fucking money they owe me.

There, that's better.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Resolutions

I'm too lazy to look up quotes so I'm going to share some that either I made up or I just can't recall who said them.

"There's always room for improvement"

Okay, that's the only one I can think of.

Every year on my birthday I make my yearly resolutions. Some people do this on New Year's Eve. Some people never do it. SOME people do it on a weekly basis. One year, I did in June. It was panic induced because I was out of money and looking for a job and all I could find was NOTHING. So, I made a proclamation/resolution and had my One Year Of Opus (which you can read about on my July 2007 post). I resolved to spend NO money on clothes or any type of adornement; such as shoes, purses, hair ribbons (hahaha, hair ribbons) and earrings. I did it. Well, there was that one tee shirt. Oops. I had a whole list of things and I accomplished most of them. But that year was unusual and it's usually a birthday thing. My own private year of starting over.

Feeling Good

So, this year, after a few weeks of thought, I've come up with a couple things/ideas/desires I'd like to set down and commit to......
*Being a better writer.
*Staying the weight that I am right now.
*Putting together a reading to benefit something worthwhile.....like hospice or Smiletrain.
*Eating dinner at the dining room table more often.
*Traveling to someplace I've never been before.
*Check out some live music at least once a month.
*Dance more.

I seem to work better with rules and lists. I need deadlines and a kick in the butt! I need regular wake-up calls. I like gaining the knowledge that yeah, maybe I fucked up or got stuck in a rut or just forgot to do things I used to like, yet since it's my birthday I can start over and be BETTER!

I had this miserable experience that motivated me on the writing one. I was looking at the NY Times a few days ago and there was a blurb about a book. It was called "The Happiness Project" and it was written by a woman who took a year and spent that year doing what she wanted/needed to do to be happy. HELLO. That was MY book damnit. I could have written that book. That was my one year of opus. I had the damn rough draft. I could have added, improved and edited. I could have WORKED at it. But, did I write the book? NO. Did I write any book? NO. One thing that impedes me (through my own fault) is that I take what other people say (or what I imagine they think) to heart. I assume I must write the regular, conventional, novel or saga. What I want to write is a book that is unusual in it's form, that is part memoir, part something, and part something else. I'm a conversational person, a person immersed in reality, I can't (don't want to) write a murder mystery or a romance. I need to write about what I know. I don't think I want to write poems...at least I think I want to write MORE than poems. So, by saying I have a resolution to be a better writer, I think it means that I want to be a truthful writer, a more frequent writer and a writer who just DOES it. So, stepping out on a limb here, I think I'll just say that one of my resolutions is to actually write a book that I try and get published. There. Done and done. No, wait, not TRY and get published. GET published. On my terms, as weird and ridiculous as it might be. A sort of memoir, poetry, short story, surprises in envelopes, recipe, general life hints, and picture filled opus.

Yeah birthday resolutions!!!!!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Several Stories

Fingernails. I think I'll start with fingernails. I'm sitting here wondering where to start and I've realized I mostly need to go clip my nails. In New York, I forgot to pack clippers and several times I caught a nail and tore off a bit and had no way to alleviate the situation aside from biting it off. So, a day back in Flagstaff and I see I need to repair myself. My mom was a filer. Always filing her nails. They were beautiful and simple. I'm a clipper. Polish never stays on, I'm always knocking into something and I just did not get the beautiful nails gene. I have, however, managed to get a job where I'm not ALLOWED to wear polish so I have an excuse. Plus, I like to saw stuff, and paint things, and bang about, so I'm never going to be the girl with the lovely nails.

Okay, done.

Stories. I'm moving on to stories. I have a few. The first one started a year and a half ago. This story I'm going to shorten a bit. In August of 2008, an ex-boyfriend put a gun to my head. It was scary and intentional. I went to his house to get a couple cell phones back that were delivered to his house instead of mine. I made a few mistakes (FYI......in iffy situations when you have the choice of calling the police to help or barreling through on your own, choose the police), but he obviously made bigger ones. The State of Arizona took him to court and he was convicted two weeks ago of aggravated assault. I'm not going to go into all the court stuff but it was grueling. I spent several days on the stand and listened to lies by people I didn't even know. And then the jury came through. And now he's going to prison. But that's not even the story. The story is that I stopped blogging when it happened. I didn't want to write about my life; like when I was going to go to Kansas or even what time I left for work. I had to leave out so much of "regular life stuff" because I was afraid to expose anything about where I was going or what time or with who. It was WEIRD. I felt like I had to censor my whole flipping life when I wrote. When he had me on the floor and had the gun at my jaw, he even said, "You better watch what you write, people read your blog and know where you are and when you're gone." It was an implied threat, but it made me think about the possibilities. So, I worked hard to keep my posts generic, and I wrote less. And I honestly don't know if I'll ever be as open as I was when I started blogging. I get on facebook more, although I don't write on it much. The day before the trial I wrote a little post asking for positive energy and prayers and good vibes and 20 people sent me posts back. That was the day facebook won me over. I have to say this about facebook...you get to pick your friends (the people who can view your page), everyone is so fucking nice, and no one swears (damnit). Hahaha. I also am looking forward to blogging more. I love to write the long posts, the funny stories and the six paragraph "real life stuff" that isn't so much a part of facebook. So, although I'm leaving out a lot of that story, you get my drift. It was big and scary and it has changed the way I think about some things. And now I get to move on.

Today is my birthday. Barry is making me a cake. It's a process. Last night he started (from scratch) and used the cake pans my mom used to use. They're a bit smaller, 8" instead of 9", and after twenty minutes in the oven, smoke started to waft into the kitchen. The batter was overflowing onto the bottom of the oven. They never cooked and we poured the batter down the drain (okay, it made me laugh). This morning he started again, made three layers, not filling the pans up so full, and they fell. The layers are like 8" wide thin chocolate pancakes. He was a little bummed but I think they're going to be nice and tasty. Plus, more frosting fixes anything! And Barry made me a cake! I love it when people make you a cake on your birthday.

Facebook won me over AGAIN today....so many people wished me a happy birthday. I LOVE all you hoo-ha's wishing me a happy day. I am SO lucky and blessed to have you. THANK YOU. I'm in the process of deciding on my birthday resolutions, which will be forthcoming. I am planning on the best year ever.

Here's another story, that I would have been writing so much about over the last few months but I didn't want to give away my whereabouts. I went to NEW YORK CITY! All last week I was in New York. I believe I did already mention it, but my book, Game, was a finalist in the Patterson Poetry Prize. They asked me to read in New Jersey. So my son and my niece Suzy and her two girls who are Jay's age, and my sister and I flew into JFK last Tuesday. Here's the run-down...

Day one....five hour flight.
Awesome hotel in midtown Manhattan. Ate my first $16 hamburger at Smith & Wollensky. Walked around. Went to Rockefeller Center. Watched people ice skate. I tell you, that rink is so much smaller in person. Snowing in NY.

Day two....We were on the Today Show (check it out on my facebook). Tour bus. Ground Zero. Lunch at Olivas. Excellent pizza! Mary Poppins on Broadway. Limo Ride through Central Park, by the Met, Guggenheim, Lincoln Center. Ate at Raffles. Food is expensive!! Five dollars for a kids chocolate milk!

Day three....Times Square. M&M world (damn kids). Empire State Building. The Strand Bookstore. Battery Park. Staten Island Ferry. Looked at the Statue of Liberty. Subway to Harlem! Dinner at Sylvias (Excellent dinner!!). Here's a short story about Harlem. I live in a very white bread place. My son goes to a very white bread school. We walked about 5 blocks from the subway to the restaurant. Jay was nervous. He had never been in the minority. Never.
At one point he looked at me and said "I hate this. Can we just go back to our hotel?" and I could see his discomfort and even a little fear. I said, "It's okay. No one is going to hurt us here." We got to Sylvia's and sat down and ate an incredible dinner. Jay LOVED it. He relaxed and had fun. He interacted with black people. I mentioned that I think it's good to get out of ones comfort zone sometimes. It WAS good. I talked about how we're all just the same people, going to jobs, having families, eating dinners, trying to make it and pay bills and coping the best we can. We walked back to the subway after dinner and all three of the kids looked at the lights and the architecture and the people with less fear and more wonder. I LOVE that kind of situation. I wish my life held more cultural diversity. But it was so great to stretch ourselves a little and see other lives and places and people. Even if it was a very small moment, it was still an enlightening one.

Day four......The Natural History Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wow. Over four hours in each one. More subway. Mimi's for dinner (Italian). I LOVE The Met!

Day five....UGH! My reading was cancelled. Snow in New Jersey. Big Storm in D.C. Man, was I disappointed. I was going to get to read with Li-Young Lee and Molly Peacock. I was going to get to sell my book. I was going to get to listen to poets that I've read and admired for years. I was going to thank the small presses, especially my publisher, Two Dogs Press, because without small presses, it's hard to get published. I was going to live in the winner's circle of poetry for a couple hours. I was sad, and I had to stop myself from dwelling on the thought that my one big chance to get my book out there was gone. Maybe it was gone. Maybe that would have been it. But, I had to work on letting it go. I still am. Instead, that day, we went to St Patrick's Cathedral (wow), FAO Swartz (damn kids), and the NBA store, and Macy's and Saks and The Magnolia Bakery. It was still good. It was NEW YORK CITY!!!!

Day six....flew back to L.A., got on the Amtrak to Flagstaff. In the L.A. Grand Central Station, Jay and were sitting there waiting for the train. There was a woman who was ranting a bit. Okay, she was freaking crazy. Hollering at folks, dropping her luggage, demanding someone haul her down to the train. "Well Jay, I have to say one thing, there are a lot more crazy people in L.A. than Flagstaff" I say to my son. Fast forward to getting off the train in Flagstaff. I hear a woman's familiar voice. "I am not getting off the train" Rant, rant rant. Etc. Etc. Demanding service, dropping luggage. Yes, it was her. She lives in Flagstaff.